Desperate Youths, Bloodthirsty Babes
by whiplash-girlchild
Summary: AU - Supernatural forces collide as our favorite girls, Naomi and Emily meet for the first time. What traps and dangers will behold them? Alternating Viewpoints/Naomily/Effy/etc. Trying chapter by chapter this time. Encourage me to finish.
1. Golden Age

**Desperate Youths, Bloodthirsty Babes**

**by whiplash_girlchild**

AU – Alternating viewpoints. Romanti-pervy. You know how I roll. Enjoy.

**English Countryside - 1812 - (Effy) **

My horse gallops at breakneck speed and tree branches whip me in the face. His large legs are thundering through the forest, pounding like the rhythm of a drum. "They are still chasing me," I realize. Nothing I haven't been through before. If I hadn't killed that girl, maybe just maybe things would've been different. Maybe I wouldn't be running for my existence, I hesitate to say life; as I lost that, quite some time ago. The branch that had hit me has left a small scratch across my cheek, but blood doesn't flow from it, reddish brown. Instead, I can feel the dark black liquid ooze slowly from it. I ignore it. My fucking corset is killing me. Fuck this century and its impractical fashions. If I had lungs to breathe with, I swear to god I'd be suffocating. My hair billows behind me as the horse strains his legs furiously, muscles and tendons pulling and grinding against the bone. He snorts and his breath fills the cool air briefly before it is carried backwards.

I was used to running. My "family" had to move every so often to avoid detection. You can only stick around for so long when you look "this good." I'm not being conceited, I promise. It just comes with the territory. It feels like I've seen ages pass, slipping past me effortlessly, yet they stretch out before me, endlessly as well.

Suddenly my horse rears back and throws me to the ground. "Fuck!" I yell loudly. And suddenly a flint lock pistol is being pointed at me, its dull steel barrel pointed sharply in my face. As I look up, I see a plainly dressed man in a brown wool overcoat and short pants sneering down at me. "Now you die, foul creature," He spits at me, his pale skin glinting in the moonlight and his dark eyes menacing. Two other men join him, riding up on horseback. One carries a large bronze cross and is holding it outwards toward me, the other a wooden stick sharpened on the end to a point. The first man is staring at me and finally bellows. "Elizabeth Stonem, your ungodly existence ends tonight. There is no escape."

I smile at him. I smile my "Effy smile," and say sweetly "You don't know me and you never will." I lace the words with as much sickening meaning as I possibly can. Then I lunge for him faster than any mortal can move and I rip from him, his tender throat. He doesn't even have time to scream. I make quick work of the second man, snapping his neck. Unavoidable I'm afraid, 'the family' will be pissed. The third man, I pull from his panicking horse and drag him into me. I bite down hard on his neck feeling the sweet nectar of his blood rush into me. The scrape on my face disappears. Color rushes to my cheeks again. Fuck yes. With every pulse of his heart beat, I feel alive again. As it begins to slow to a stop, I release him, snapping his neck in the process. I was done anyways and we don't feed on the dead. It's a rule.

I gather myself, smooth my dress and find my horse 20 clicks from where I almost lost my wretched existence. Why keep trying? Why keep fighting for something so horrible? Because, it's honestly better than being nothing. That is my only other option. This creature that I've become or oblivion, which one would you choose if you were me? Honestly, it's not glamorous being this child of darkness. This "vampire," as they call it. Frankly feasting on blood isn't the fun you'd think it is. But what really bothers me isn't the violence and sheer misery of it, what bothers me are the little things I actually miss, being hugged by my mother, laughing with my father, breathing, being in love. I miss it all. How can I bear to exist this way? Why am I cursed among women? I don't know, I never fucking know. Because "I'm the Oracle," I suppose. My sire had told me this before I was embraced. I could see into the future. See people for who they were. They were laid bare beneath my piercing gaze. Being undead has only magnified these powers. So far, I've lived almost a century and I'm not fucking impressed. Will civilization get better or worse? I don't know, but I've got plenty of time to find out. I grinned wickedly to myself.

I make my way back to the small shelter I share with my "family." I use this term, but really it is a small clan of bretheren who bare the same curse as I do. I'll just go ahead and spit it out into the black night, letting it fill it with its wretched emptiness and longing. Vampires. We are vampires. I gaze at my adopted family and realize that we must leave tonight.

The twins, such beautiful pale skinned, dark haired, doe eyed creatures. Beautiful like porcelain dolls. Sometimes I'm afraid to touch them. For fear that they might shatter at my concrete touch. Katherine and Emily, I smile to them. Their brown orbs eye me sadly. They have never adapted fully to their curse. Everything they do is tainted with their sadness. I feel bad for them. At least I relish this existence from time to time. James, he is brash and angry, filled with rage and hard to control. His sandy blonde hair seems disheveled and he grins at me wickedly. I'm surprised I'm the one to ruin our charade this time. Usually James, I mean "Cook" is the one to give in to his baser instincts.

I didn't mean to kill her. It had only been an attempt for me to satiate that dark thirst within me. No, not bloodlust; not this time. I have been attracted to both sexes for a long time and while I enjoy shagging the occasional man, sometimes I crave the touch only a woman can give, their soft skin, rosy lips, thighs and bottoms. In the time when I was mortal, I was caught with another girl once. They hung her and I ran. I ran so far and so fast that I felt ashamed of myself for my cowardice. I was careful this time, so cautious and so sly. This time was different, I kissed the girl, ran my hands down her back and she shivered; I could feel myself losing control. I kissed this girls neck, I imagined all of her soft fullness beneath me and I sunk my teeth into her. I drank furiously and wantonly. Clutching her naked body to me, I hadn't meant to. I didn't want to. I honestly just wanted to feel her warmth against my cold heart. For once, I had just wanted the warmth of being needed. Instead, I took from her a delicate life that wasn't mine to take. Sometimes being a monster sucks beyond the telling of it. Her father had found me with her lifeless body, drenched in her blood. He chased me outside of town and had cornered me there. I had ripped his throat out, killing two others after that.

I told them what I had done. The twins hated me for it. Both of them yelled furiously at me. Katherine swore at me in her delicate lisp, that I couldn't help but find cute. What? Effy Stonem, snap out of it. I pulled my lips up into a patronizingly sweet grin. Emily's eyes were filled with sorrow and bitterness as she lectured me on the perils of "being discovered." I rolled my eyes and made a "wanking off" gesture behind her back. Cook laughed recklessly.

Ultimately, it came down to eliminating any trace of our existence. We dug up corpses and placed them inside our dwelling just outside of town, we then set our home a blaze. As we wrapped our coats tightly against ourselves, shielding us from the bitter English cold; we walked away from the existence we had grown accustomed to, again. I looked at Cook and his face was lost and sad. Katherine and Emily held hands and their dark brown hair mingled together as it blew behind them. Emily's eyes held unshed tears. My curly brown locks blew behind me and my blue eyes gazed ahead of me, into the caverns of time and space. I smiled to myself. I wasn't sad. I was always waiting for what would come next, the adventure of it all. What each new decade would bring, let alone each new century. I dared fate just then, _"Come on, then. What have you got? Shock me for once. Startle me. Take my fucking breath away!"_ The universe seemed quiet, but I could swear, just for a second that I heard it whispering to me. _"Just wait…"_ Well, I guess I've got all the time in the fucking world.


	2. Love Dog

**Bristol, England – Present Day - (Emily) **

It has been over two hundred years since we were in England last. I have missed it so, missed its soft grey days, endless warm nights and damp soft air. Spending the last two centuries fighting the werewolf hordes and running when we'd worn our welcome out, was wearing me down inside. It was smoothing out my edges and making me soft and dull. I felt tired. The battles we had been having with the Lycans over the last two centuries had become a full-blown war. Effy, Cook, Katie and I had become soldiers. Warriors for the Vampire kind, we developed cutting edge weaponry, silver-liquid bullets, silver coated blades and high tech Lycan detection equipment. Kill or be killed, death dealers to all moving things. I sighed heavily as I wrapped my wool peacoat tighter to my body, a slight chill in the night air making me, involuntarily shiver. I reached my hand up to push my dark brown locks out of my chocolate brown eyes and gazed into the distance. Listened to the music the night was making. The sounds of a thousand heart beats, pulsing in a syncopated rhythm. They were pounding in my head as I heard the rush of their blood. But one heart beat stood out to me, the music it made drew me into it, it was so close. Pounding so fast now, from excitement, from anger…no, from fear. They were afraid. I could tell. Before I saw them, I heard them scream. It was a woman, I smelled the air. Vampire? No, Lycan. I thrust open my coat and pulled my gun from its holster. I ran down the street, following her heartbeat. I wanted to save her and I don't know why.

As I ran through the street, I turned to a deserted alleyway off of Kenningston Road. In the dim light of the alley, I saw it. Fur covered mass of raging fury, all muscle and sinew. It covered the body of this woman completely, it was attacking her. I took aim at the beast and shot it twice, through the space where its heart must lay. It screeched and howled and ran into the cool, damp night. I can't worry about that now, I have to see if she's okay. What, Emily? What are you now, a vampire with a soul? I chuckled to myself at my own ridiculousness. My breath hitched in my chest as I looked at her scared, beautiful form. She was tall with ivory skin, sweetly honey colored hair and crystalline blue eyes. I gasped at her beauty. She trembled before me then, afraid. I snapped myself out of the daze I had stumbled into.

"Are you alright?" I said, barely croaking out my warm words that slipped from my tongue like sweet nectar. I said it so tenderly to her, I didn't know why.

"Th…thank you." She sputtered. "What was that thing?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I said laughing warmly, extending my hand to the beautiful blonde before me.

Just then she surprised me by laughing softly. "Just try me, after what I've seen tonight, I think I'll believe anything you tell me." She then took my hand pulling herself up. When her soft skin brushed mine sparks shot through me and it felt as if I had been set on fire. It frightened me a little and I jumped back. She eyed me curiously.

"Everything okay with you," she asked plainly.

"Yeah," I fumbled. "My names Emily, what's yours?" What the actual fuck are you doing, Emily. Giving her your name? What has come over you? _"Why don't you just tell her you're a lesbian vampire who saved her life from a frisky werewolf, you daft cow."_ I stopped my internal berratement long enough to catch her delicate whispered response.

Her electric blue eyes worked their way down my body. "My names Naomi, thanks for saving my life. What can I possibly do to repay you?" I gulped hard, the excitement coursing through me. Fuck, she was turning me on.

I sputtered like an idiot, sweetly fumbling for a response. "Uhmm…I could walk you home?"

"I'd like that. I feel safe with you, Emily." She reached out and took my hand gently, our fingers entwining.

My heart that hadn't ached in two hundred years seemed to hum to life within me. I swear I could feel it slamming against my ribcage. I swear it. It sounded like a distant drum beat. I swear I could feel it.

We walked in silence as I let beautiful Naomi drag me behind her like a tattered rag doll. I would be so happy as her rag doll. What? Your insane, Emily. You are a vampire. She's a lovely girl, but probably not interested in shagging the undead. Although, it couldn't hurt to ask, I think to myself smiling. Emily Fucking Fitch, you are ridiculous.

I inhale deeply and smell the night air. The jasmine of Naomi's skin, the honeyed smell of her body, the sweet metallic smell of her…blood; she's bleeding. I turned my neck slowly to gaze at her beautiful pale skin and saw three distinct scratches oozing her life's essence from them. I stopped walking in my tracks. "Naomi, did that thing scratch or bite you?"

"What? Oh, I guess so. I was trying to fight it off Emily, but it was so damn strong. I was screaming and screaming but then you saved me, I was so happy Emily. Thank god for you. What was it again?"

I stared at her neck silently, my face still and suddenly sad. If you are attacked by a Lycan, don't let it touch you. Don't let it break your skin. Somehow, their curse is transferred by breaking your skin. If they scratch or bite you, you are cursed. You are lost forever in the wild, dark rage of their endless nights. You are my enemy. You are a Lycan.

My mouth went dry as I looked at the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her life had officially ended, in the blink of an eye and she didn't even know it yet.


	3. Let the Devil In

**Bristol, England – Present Day - (Naomi)**

This is it, the end of my life. I didn't think it would happen this way. I cursed my sudden decision to go to the store late at night. Stupid move, Naomi and surely you knew that fate didn't make mistakes. Fate didn't play games. When your number was up, it was up. Why tempt it? Don't give it a reason to look for you. Stay hidden, make yourself small and it will never find you. That's worked so well for me up til' now. I am currently working as a receptionist at a legal firm, still trying to finish my degree at University. Making myself small wasn't working out so well for me. I knew I had to find a way to be somebody. As I trudged down the deserted alleyway, I clutched my pint of milk and Garabaldis to me in their rustling plastic sack. It's stupid really, why I felt like I needed groceries at eleven at night. I laughed internally at myself. I was so lost in my own thoughts, that I didn't notice the "thing" lurking in the shadows. I heard it before I saw it, exhaling a shaky, raspy breath that sounded guttural and animalistic.

I whipped around in the darkness in time to see a mass of fur and teeth, gnashing at me and pushing me down to the pavement. The ground knocked my breath from my body, stinging me with pain and feeling as if a knife had pierced my lungs. I furiously pushed at it and screamed when I regained my breath. I prayed that someone would hear me, anyone. Would they even be able to help me? As I fought with this beast I wondered was it a wild dog, an escaped zoo animal? I didn't know. The adrenaline surged through me and I continued hitting and smashing at its face. Suddenly, I heard the sound of two "pops" and heard the beast yelp in pain. It leapt off of me, scurrying down the alleyway to be absorbed into the wretched arms of the night.

I lay still for a moment. I was shaking. Too in shock to move, I suppose. I instantly felt better when I saw my "savior" standing over me. Short, I thought, but gorgeous. Pale skin, deep dark eyes, long brown hair, petite and soft featured. Curvaceous and really drop dead gorgeous, actually. She holstered a gleaming blue steel handgun under her dark wool pea coat and raked her hand through her beautiful brown hair. Her dark eyes shone like tiger's eye in the darkness somehow. I gulped hard. I was more afraid of this girl than of the beast that attacked me.

"Are you alright?" she asked me. Fuck. Her voice, deep and throaty, the hottest thing I have ever heard in my ears. I shivered involuntarily.

We exchanged pleasantries which is odd really, but after what had just happened I'm not sure I can judge "what is odd" and "what is not" anymore. She said she'd walk me home. I was flirting with her honestly, the adrenaline making me bold and reckless. I took her hand in mine and pulled at her but I felt something pulling at me back. It was as if a thread connected Emily and I at the heart strings and if I moved too far from her, it stabbed at me. Squeezed my poor heart so hard it might explode. It is an odd feeling. Then that pulling and tearing feeling expanded to every inch of my skin. I felt like I was burning alive. Suddenly I didn't feel so well.

"Naomi, did that thing scratch or bite you?" Emily asked me concerned and if I'm honest, quite sadly.

My response was a rambling one. I felt myself burning up. I suddenly felt too big for my skin to contain. I felt wild. I pulled Emily's sad, sweet body to mine. I heard her breath hitch, softly resonating through her throat. I moved my face up to hers and captured her cool, smooth lips in my own. I growled into her mouth. She at first pushed at me slightly and I felt a pang of guilt, but only for a moment. Then she returned my kiss with fervor and my heart hammered inside of the ribcage I swore was becoming far too small for it. Her tongue found mine and wrestled with it and I pulled her legs up around me – lifting her off the ground. _"Where did that come from?"_ I wondered.

"Naomi." Emily moaned. Hearing her deep voice moan my name drove me wilder still. I nipped at the tender flesh of her neck. I dug my nails into the fabric of her shirt, clutching at it. "Naomi!" Emily shouted pushing back from me and dropping like a graceful cat to the pavement. She sat half perched, looking rather predatory at me. Her brown eyes were now black orbs, solid black, with no trace of white showing. Her breath was labored and from her small elegant lips I saw the white of two fangs.

"What the fuck are you?" I sputtered.

She was silently eyeing me as she willed her appearance to return to its previous guise. Still, even as a monster she was beautiful. "_Fuck sake, Naomi._ _Get a damn grip."_

"The question is, Naomi my dear," She said straightening her body and moving closer to me again. "What the fuck are you?"

"I'm sorry?" I said stupidly to her. A second ago, I wanted to devour her beautiful pale skin. I wanted to feel her writhe beneath me in a sweat covered splendor. That feeling hadn't quite gone away. Images of her naked seemed to come to me in painful flashes and a rumbling began low in my belly. It made me want to tear something apart, it made me want to break the world open wide, and it made me want to howl. I was suddenly frightened again. "What's happening to me?" I asked her pleadingly.

"Naomi, come with me. You'll be safe, I promise." She sputtered.

"Not until you tell me what is happening to me!" I yelled at her desperately. I began tugging at my shirt ripping at it unconsciously. I began running my hands through my hair furiously.

"Naomi, stay with me. Don't let it control you. You can control it."

What was this "it" she was talking about? My heart was pounding painfully in my chest and it felt like the atoms under my skin were going to tear me apart. Suddenly, I wanted to howl again. I felt the scream clawing its way out of my throat. Scraping as it pushed its way out of me, like vomiting pieces of broken glass. "Aaaaaaaaaa!" I yelled uncontrollably as pain shot through my entire body.

"Naomi, don't." Emily said helplessly. I felt like my skin was stretching across my frame with each breath. It was painful and it made me angry.

"Emily," I gasped out, weeping. "Emily," I fell to my knees. "Help me."

The petite brunette sprinted to my side and clutched at my body that was screaming in agony. I fell writhing to the pavement. I looked up at the stars, they seemed to hum and vibrate in the sky and it hurt to look at them. The full moon was as big and luminous. It filled the sky and had a tinge of yellow upon its pockmarked surface. The moon was so big. Had it always been this big? I pushed my hands up in front of my face to shield myself from the surging sensation I felt when I gazed at the sky, shocked to see before me, long dark nails springing from my fingertips. I felt my eyes being bathed in a swath of red. "Emily. Emily where are you? Help me. What is happening to me?" I growled into the night.

I heard her solemn voice as she hovered above me, lightly kissing my forehead. "I'm so sorry, Naomi. I wish for all the world, things could be different." I felt an electric shock course through my body, lighting me up from the inside out. Then, everything went dark.


	4. Blues From Down Here

**Bristol, England – Present Day - (Emily) **

As I watched the beautiful blonde's body being surging with dark life, pulsing with her new found curse. I let my sorrow overtake me. If only we had met under different circumstances, I know we would be lovers. I think maybe I could have felt something for her. Don't ask me how I know this, I just feel it and although it shouldn't be moving anymore, the space beneath my breast where my heart should lay; quivers and hammers at the sight of her. I would love to watch her writhe beneath me as I planted passionate kisses down her slender frame. Love to see her arch her back as I licked and sucked every supple part of her pale skin. I shivered to myself.

When she kissed me I felt like my fucking heart had exploded as our lips collided. I was rocked down to my core by her beauty, slaughtered by her kiss and devoured by my passion. As I realized I was kissing a lycan, I tried to push back from her. She only gripped me tighter and her tongue possessed me completely. Everything dead inside me sprang to life when her lips possessed mine. It was unfair really. Everything was so damn unfair. Who said that life would ever be fair? No one, but I felt that somewhere something had to be looking out for us. That there must be some greater design at work, a plan that I didn't understand, but perhaps there was nothing, just nothing at all.

Naomi lay in her steel barred cage, naked, covered by a blue wool blanket. I had taken her to my family. I don't know why really. I thought that maybe we could find a way to fix her. I hated to think that her life was over. I hated to think of her in pain. I hated it. I don't know why, but I wanted to see her smile at me. I wanted to feel her lips touch mine out of desire and not desperation. I wanted to feel her love for me radiating off of her in waves, as she quivered beneath me. I had been alive if you could call it that, for over two hundred years and had never met anyone who made me feel this way. Why couldn't I have been born 184 years later? I would have met her in her youth. I would have chased her playfully, so innocently and so gently. I would have made her come to me and lay bare her heart and soul. I would have loved her well, if she had let me.

Why think about that now, Emily? What difference does it make? None at all, but it is nice to believe that somewhere I am loving her, even now. As the seconds pass, somewhere I am kissing her softly upon a bed of soft leaves and damp earth, somewhere our fire burns, somewhere in a secluded wood; we are becoming infinite together.

I sit in the basement of the dirty brick structure on Wayle Street that my family had made our home. We rented it from some fat, bald idiot named Gary who charged a little too much, stared far too leeringly and smelled of cheap cigars and piss poor beer. I was perched in a partially tinted window sill, gazing out the window only briefly before once again returning my attention to the beautiful sleeping girl in the cage across from me.

Vampires can move in the sunlight, no matter what ridiculous crap you've heard. We don't sparkle. We don't turn to ash or burst into flames. We don't have reflections though, which makes it hard to move freely in the light. Our consumption of blood makes our cheeks rosy, our bodies warm, but our hearts are still and our skin is pale. I pulled myself into a tight little ball and hugged my knees. I stared at Naomi, her long blonde hair falling about her shoulders, her sweet lips parted in her sleep, a lycan. Why did she have to be a lycan? I heard the large steel door creak open and I raised my head to gaze upon the face of my twin, Katie.

"Has she woken up yet?"

"No." I almost whispered.

"You know we can't keep her here, Emily. Effy has a strict, 'leave no lycan alive' policy." Katie said standing defiantly.

"Can't we find a way to help her?" I asked pleadingly.

"What is wrong with you, Ems?" Katie eyed me suspiciously. "Why do you care? Oh, god. You like her don't you? Jesus Christ, will you stop perving and use your brain."

"Fuck off Katie," I muttered.

"You better get it together soon, Effy is on her way back and her 'watch' over your 'lover girl' is next. I doubt she'll make it through another night."

"I said, Fuck off." I mumbled rising to push Katie out the heavy steel door and bolting it shut.

I slowly made my way over to the cage where Naomi lay sleeping and pushed my hand through the bars and ran it through a strand of her soft, blonde hair. "I won't let them hurt you, Naomi. I promise." I whispered almost as a prayer.


	5. I Was a Lover

**A/N: Keen readers may have noticed all chapter titles are "TV on the Radio" song titles. Trying to post longer chapters from here on out, which may take me longer…but f*ck it. I'll try. You're worth it. :D**

**Bristol, England – Present Day – (Naomi)**

I awoke in a dark cool room, wrapped carefully in a wool blanket. I stirred my aching limbs and maneuvered myself as if to rise to stand, when I realized something incredibly important. I'm naked. I slept here in a cage, naked. Well, this is a new experience. Not all too shocking considering my tastes, I chuckled to myself despite my awkward and bizarre situation.

"You're awake," I heard from behind me in a delightfully husky voice.

I spun around clutching my blanket for dignity's sake. "Yes, Emily what happened last night? Where am I?"

She shook her head. "Not last night, three nights ago. The cycle of the full moon is over now though, you're out of danger."

"Three nights! I've been missing for three nights?" I sputtered frantically.

"That doesn't matter now, Naomi. Everything is different now." The beautiful brunette named Emily said to me sadly.

"What do you mean? Let me out of here." I moved closer to the bars and clutched at them playfully for effect.

"I want to," Emily said sadly. "And perhaps that's the problem. I want nothing more than to unlock that door and run with you, somewhere, anywhere."

I smile at her admission. She wants me as much as I want her, she can feel it pulling at her heart. It is stabbing at me, even now. "Can I give you some incentive?" I smile wickedly. Slowly I open my blanket and I hear her breathing hitch. "Like what you see?"

"Naomi," I hear her whisper. She glides closer to the cage now, slipping her slender arm between the bars and running her soft, cool hand along the side of my body. Slowly, torturously slow, she moves up to my breast and then squeezes it softly. I moan at her touch. I hear her gasp softly. The air around us crackles with electricity. "You're so beautiful," she says with admiration and sorrow lacing her voice. Suddenly, I hear her choke back a sob.

Suddenly she pulls back from me and moves away from the cage, softly crying. I cover myself with the blanket again and yell to her. "Emily? Emily, what's wrong? Let me out of here. I can't hug you all the way over there."

"You're killing me, Naomi," she chokes between sobs. "I died two hundred fucking years ago and I swear it feels like it's happening all over again. You are crushing my heart and I can't take it."

"You, died?" I said bewildered and somewhat stupidly.

"Fucks sake, Naomi, I'm a god damn vampire!" She shouted at me through tears.

"Of course," I mumble stupidly. "What am I then?"

Emily continues sobbing as she looks up to face me, "You are a werewolf, a lycan and my sworn enemy."

"I just met you and I certainly don't want to be your enemy. To be honest, I want to kind of kiss the life out of you and other stuff but not fight you, that's ridiculous." I stop my rant noticing Emily is now staring at me no longer sobbing.

"You want to kiss me?" She asks somewhat shyly in such a delicate way that it breaks my heart into a million pieces.

"Only since the moment I laid eyes on you," I reply honestly.

Suddenly she runs for my cage gripping each side of my blanket tightly and lustfully kisses my mouth. It is passionate and wild, filled with longing. Her tongue rakes across my lips and I provide it entrance. Her hands roam beneath my blanket and I don't stop her because my heart is hammering inside my chest, slamming up against my ribcage with such fury that I think it might explode from beneath my breast. It hurts, but damn it, it also feels good. I need to feel more of her. It is irrational. I've never been this attracted to anyone, ever. I need to breathe in the sweet apple scent of her hair, kiss the soft velvet of her lips and caress the pale soft skin that slides beneath my fingertips like silk.

I try desperately to pull her towards me. I'm on fire and burning alive.

"No," she pulls back and I grip at her tightly, panting my lust at her heavily.

"Emily," I gasp out.

"No, no."

She pulls back trying to regain some control over the situation. She can't help herself anymore than I can. Our passion for each other is mystifying, dark, and dangerous; and right now it is all I want. She is all I want. "Emily, come back here," I pant, shooting her a seductive look.

"No, I…I can't. Don't do this to me."

"What are you playing at? All I want is to kiss you, to touch you. Would that be so bad?" I clutch my blanket back around myself self-conciously, losing what ever nerve I had upon hearing her rejection. I bow my head momentarily, then raising my gaze to stare into her deep brown eyes. "Emily, why am I locked up? Why won't you let me out?"

"I can't. Didn't you listen to me before? Lycans are the enemies of the Vampire kind."

The words roll of her tongue in slow motion but sting my ears like acid. _Enemies._ We will never be friends, we will fight, cry and scream at each other, but we will never be friends. My mind is reeling as I push my hands through my blonde locks carelessly.

"What are you going to do with me Emily? Are you going to kill me? Is that what is going to happen? I'm your enemy so you kill me and put me out of my sodding misery? This, this existence I have now, whatever it is, couldn't be more miserable than knowing we can never touch again; that I'll never be able to give you everything I have! I know you feel it too! I know you fucking do!"

Emily eyes me with wonder and curiousity. I suppose my feelings are strange, I just met her, but that is how I am with people. I know instantly. I am a believer. I am always saying yes to things. I would drive across town to feel her touch, to listen to her laughter, even if it is only for 10 seconds, I would be satisfied. I would move heaven and earth to see her smile. Stand in the pouring rain forever if I must, on the doorstep of her heart. I will write my name in blood upon those forgotten walls, I will capture every night we spend apart, all over the world and bring them to her. I have known her for only a few days, but I am a believer. As she looks at me with her dark eyes shining, I can tell that she is not.

"Naomi," Emily says her voice husky and low, I involuntarily shiver. "I wish things could be different. Maybe we can help you. Find a way to fix you, but then you must go."

"Fix me?" I say stifling back tears and chuckling bitterly. "Then I must go, away from you?" My stomach clenches and my heart stabs at me as the words leave me. I do not understand why, but the thought of leaving her is more important to me than the life I have lost. "Why does everyone think I want to be fixed? My mum, my dad, you. Maybe I'm just fine. Sure I'm a fucking train-wreck, but damn it, I'm fine."

"I just told you that you're a werewolf, Naomi. You need time for that to soak in. Your life as you know it is gone; everything, your humanity, your soul, your friends, gone."

Oddly enough I find the strength to laugh. Emily stares at me wide eyed and gorgeous. _Fucks sake, Naomi_. I shout at the top of my lungs. "So I bid it goodbye then! Goodbye, shitty flat that had a sink that always dripped! Goodbye, boring job that was killing me anyways! Goodbye, shit for brains boss that always expected too much with no concept of actual time frames to get things done!" I am now in tears as I shout at Emily for no good reason. I begin to sob and my voice falls to a whisper. "Goodbye, Panda my dear friend with the sweet husband Thomas. Goodbye, mum." I slump down in the cage openly sobbing with my back to Emily.

I feel Emily standing so close to the cage as she reaches through and puts her hand upon my shoulder.

"I died many years ago. I was only 19 years old. So stupidly innocent, I was going to be forced to marry a man I didn't love. My parents didn't want me to be an old-maid. I had no interest in men, though. But back then there were no options for 'girls like me.' I decided to run away. Katherine, I mean Katie, said not to leave her alone. She is very loyal and I am a lonely sort, so I selfishly took her with me. Things would be so different if I hadn't run, if she hadn't come. We left in the middle of the night, escaping our village under the darkened tapestry of an Autumn evening. I was confident we could make our way, that we could live as we chose. My selfishness doomed us both. The men we paid to transport us to another village were vampires. They attacked us, but instead of killing us, they doomed us to walk endless nights, yearning for the souls and lives we'd lost. I understand Naomi, I really do. I will never see my mother or my father again, my little brother. I would give anything to have gotten to you a few seconds earlier. I would give anything to have never run away."

I turned my head to look up at Emily. Who eyes me with sympathy and longing, I send her a small smile as I clasp my hand around the one that is resting on my shoulder.

"But if you hadn't run away, how would destiny have guided you here with me? Don't run away now, Emily. We're just getting started." Emily pulls her hand back from me and gives me a contrite smile.

"There is nothing to start," she says simply. "I will help you, then you must go. Don't look for me. Don't stay awake nights, lurking in alleyways hoping to catch a glimpse of me. I can hear your heartbeat and I will avoid it."

"I will devote every single second we spend apart to you, to my thoughts of you. I will build an altar out of my desire and a shrine for it to dwell in. You can avoid my beating heart, but you are the one it beats for. As long as you are out there, I am hopeful, as long as you are awake in the night, I will be waiting. You aren't a believer, I get that. Maybe if I just give you time, you'll realize…"

"No, Naomi." Emily's expression becomes stern. "What is wrong with you? Are all lycans like this or just you?"

"I've never met a lycan before," I say feebly. "but I think it's just me. I think it's just you, I mean I've never felt this way about anyone. It's like I can't control myself around you." I finish rather sheepishly.

Emily looks away from me and chews on her lower lip, absorbing my words. "I'm going to find you some clothes, Naomi. I'll be right back." She unbolts the steel door and it creaks as she chucks it open. Swiftly she pulls it shut as fast as she had opened it. I hear her throw the latch from the other side. Like I'd try and escape from this cage, naked, wrapped only in a blanket. That would be outrageous fun to explain to the neighbors. _'Sorry I've been away for a few days, I've just been hanging out – naked, in this blanket. Rather comfy this is. Can you blame me?'_ God, they'd lock me up for sure. I'd trade one cage for another, which doesn't appeal to me. It has never appealed to me.

Freedom, I've never known how to define it. Living on your own? Being an adult? Finally discovering your own personal sexual identity? Being a supernatural creature? No, none of those seem to fit. None of those capture that essence of free-falling, reckless abandon and courage. There is only thing that seems close, the only thing resonating in my brain, pounding like a drum, love. Loving someone is as close as you can get to freedom. Sure, that sounds odd, but it makes a sort of mad sense, too. Loving someone else is letting go of insecurities, embracing flaws, being willing to give anything to be with them and staying because you love them above all others. This is not a cage. You are not bound to me. There is freedom here, in my arms encircling you, in my kiss upon your lips, in my heart beating against yours. I want to set you free, Emily. Love me above all others, and I promise it will set you free. I chant it to myself inside my head. _Love me._

I think I'm going mad. I have never wanted someone so much in my entire life and she is one of the sodding undead. I'm supernatural, I suppose; a lycan, a fucking werewolf. We are enemies though and can't fall in love, but I think we are. I mean, I hope we are. I want to be in love with her, it's weird but I do. Everything it entails. I can't even control myself around her, my heart screams _'Be near her, now!' _every second in her presence the atoms under my skin dance like angels on fire. Every breath from my lips, spirals upward to the stars with my unspoken passion. I wonder to myself if it hadn't been for that werewolf, if we would have ever met? Would I have always felt that empty longing, not knowing why? The emptiness inside of me that yarns like some black abyss, hungry and wanting; waiting for her to fill it, to fill the empty spaces and calm my raging soul. Does her soul ache for me the way mine does when it looks at her? _Something isn't right here. Someone is missing. She is missing. _Am I imagining the way she looks at me? Imagined her soft moans when we kissed? Imagining the lustful, tender longing blazing in her dark eyes? How do I make this right? Something has brought me to her finally, and I can not possibly ignore it. Can I?

I slam my fist down on the floor of my cage somewhat desperately. Then I rake my hands through my hair, sighing heavily. I hear the creaking of the steel door as it slowly swings open.

"I'm back," Emily says holding up jeans and a t-shirt, smiling triumphantly.

Jesus, she is adorable. _"The adorable undead now a sitcom on BBC3", I say to myself in a television announcers voice. You are ridiculous Naomi. _

"Yeah, welcome back. Same as ever here," I say smiling weakly at my poor attempt at humor.

"Here, put these on," Emily replies pushing the jeans and shirt through the bars to me. I make no move to grab at her hand. I make no move to seduce her. I frighten her as much as she frightens me, but not for the obvious reasons. Not the supernatural ones. Emily turns away from me so that I can slip the jeans over my hips and the shirt over my head. I do so quietly, only sighing when I am done. Emily turns to face me.

"Better."

"Better than before?" I question somewhat perversely.

"No, you looked smashing before, but I can't say I want my whole family to see you that way." She is playful now, all traces of sorrow and desire erased from her voice.

"The other vampires," I say softly. "They'll want to see me, inspect me. Perhaps, kill me."

Emily's brow furrows and her voice remains steady. "No, I won't let them hurt you. I promise."

"What does it matter?" I say defeated. "If I have no hope at all, if I am to endure this miserable existence as some sort of monster, why should I even care?"

Emily stares at me silently for a moment and then speaks, "If you truly believe that, I will kill you now. Spare you the agony of immortality, because to see you suffer, to feel it stretch across the ages, will kill me. I don't want you to suffer through this, I want to help you."

"Why would you even care?" I spit. "You've made it clear that you don't want me around!"

Her voice remains steady. "You can hate me, I will bear that for the ages if you wish, but promise me you'll never give up. Promise me that you will always be the gorgeous, fearless thing that you were before. You enchant me, I'll admit it. You always will. But you are right, I am not a believer." _I knew it._ "I have lived far too long to hope for better."

"I promise, but now you must promise me something," I say defiantly.

"Anything." Emily retorts softly, almost sweetly. "Anything at all."

"Promise me that you won't forget me," I say sadly. "I know I won't be able to forget you."

"I can't promise you that, Naomi."

"Why? Why can't you? You feel it too. Whenever you're away from me, a string pulling at your heart, it feels like it's going to get ripped from your chest, right? Tell me you don't feel it."

"I don't feel it."

"You're a horrible liar, Emily." I say softly.

Emily's head bows and I can tell she is using all her strength to lie to me. It may suit her for now, be her shield, but lying can not protect you from everything. It will never protect you from love. '_Love me.' _I whisper in my head. Emily raises her head and locks eyes with me as if she heard me, as if she knew what I had thought.

"I won't remember anything else."

I sigh looking into her eyes and let a small smile serenely grace my face.

Suddenly I hear footsteps coming down the corridor. I see Emily's body tense. I feel my own heart clench like a fist is surrounding it, squeezing it with every heart beat. I feel like I'm about to be inspected, perhaps torn apart and I think about it for a moment, oblivion. Just for a second, to be swallowed by that dark abyss until one thought claws at my mind in frustration and longing. _Emily. _I promised I would be brave. I will. I will die screaming and laughing, I promise.

I hear the latch being flung with a heavy metal thud. I hear the groaning of the metal hinges, the shallow sound of my own breathing. Emily moves closer to me and holds my hand through the bars. "Don't be frightened," she breathes. "I won't let them hurt you."

"Oh, right. Good," I say nervously. Emily flashes me a winning smile and kisses my hand. _Such a liar Emily, I know you feel it. _I look down at our joined hands and smile as the door is thrust open. I look up to see a slender brunette with piercing blue eyes holding my gaze. She is mesmerizing. She is wearing a simple leather jacket, blue blouse, short skirt and fishnet tights, blood red Doc Martens adorn her feet. She looks at our joined hands and smirks.

"Interesting," the brunette musters quirking an eyebrow at Emily.

Emily drops my hand.

"What an extraordinary specimen of a lycan, she is beautiful. I bet she makes a gorgeous werewolf," the brunette says gesturing towards me in the cage.

Emily shrugs. "Yeah." I don't know whether she means I'm beautiful, an extraordinary lycan, a gorgeous werewolf or all three. My heart hammers in my chest. I look at Emily but she avoids my gaze. Emily seems to be frightened of this girl, respectful of her. Maybe adoringly so, the thought makes me angry at this new girl.

"Oh, interesting." The brunette utters again moving closer to Emily but never taking her eyes off of me. Emily casts her eyes downward as the brunette closes the distance between her and my dark haired beauty. She is now almost right against her as she looks at me, but talks to Emily. "I have returned. Go now and help Cook and Katie with what I have brought. I have missed you." With that she embraces Emily kissing her softly on the lips. It is not passionate or even affectionate. If I didn't know better I could swear she was gauging my response. I don't want to play into her hands, don't want to show I care but instead, I flinch noticeably.

"Don't hurt her," Emily warns.

"Interesting." She merely says again eyeing me.

"You are right fucking cryptic," I mumble to myself.

Emily moves out of the room slowly, casting a longing filled gaze back at me. _"Definitely a liar,"_ I think to myself.

"So, you want her?" the brunette utters while motioning towards the doorway Emily exited from.

"Jesus Christ," I mutter under my breath and then say aloud. "You've lived for centuries and forgot etiquette? We're not even properly introduced and you want to talk about my 'sex life?' "

The curly haired brunette bursts into laughter as she moves to close the door and then turns around. "Unafraid, I like you."

"Yeah, well good," I say. "Will you let me go then?"

More laughter, "You are certainly something, Naomi."

"How did you know my name? Did you read my mind?" I sputter.

"Actually, I nicked your purse when you arrived. I can read minds, but I don't like to. Such a jumbled mess in everyone's head, it's like no one knows who they are."

"No one does," I say simply.

"I suppose you're right," she sighs moving to sit on a wooden crate in front of me, crossing her legs. "I'm Effy and it's a shame you're a lycan, because I really _do_ like you."

__. _


	6. DLZ

**A/N: Review me please. I'll take any comments, "Omg, wtf. I can't even," is acceptable. For as confident as I seem, I promise you all – I am the tiniest mewing kitten ever, just plunking out love stories on my keyboard to make you all happy. It is hard to type with these tiny paws. Remember. Tinest. Mewing. Kitten. Ever. Okay? Okay. Thanks to those who have already reviewed. I love you all, my sweet chinchillas.**

**Bristol, England – Present Day – (Effy)**

Strange, as I walk down the stone hallway to the cellar to visit our new lycan friend; my heart hammers beneath my breast. This is a new experience. I feel strangely connected to everything about this girl. She vibrates with intensity and light. Through the walls her heartbeat pulses in my head, I feel it hammering for someone…for Emily. I cannot mistake that sound. Two hundred years of practice has made sure I would know that rhythm anywhere, desire. It's a funny thing. It honestly sounds different from other heartbeats. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference unless you were one of us, one of the undead. But it does. It pounds and thumps your heart beating as both siphon and reservoir, hard; like some sort of magnificent strange machine. It is musical and sweet. It fascinates me endlessly, attraction. I'm quite sure that if Emily's heart could beat, the rhythm would be the same. I smile to myself. Then frown, poor dear Emily. She is cursed perhaps, with the most terrible taste in women, a werewolf after all. This girl must be something if Emily pays her any attention at all.

Should I let her have this gentle thing, this affection for a lycan? Or is it cruel to let her dream, to let her hope for better? We do not do, love. We are creatures of darkness, creatures of the empty spaces that you dare not seek for fear they shall devour you whole. I should not be kind to her, this Naomi. I should rid Emily of this temptation. But it is hard to ignore the sheaves of light that are dancing through the walls, the music of her heart, the sheer symphony of this girl. How can I ignore it? She is the most exciting thing to cross my path in two hundred years and I do not even know why. I want to unravel the mystery. I am a seeker. Knowledge excites me. I have to know what must not be known. Do you understand? We must know; that we may know. It is the only thing that makes sense, of course. Do you understand?

I shove the door open quite dramatically as the theatrical has always delighted me. Attention for attention's sake; has always made me feel exhilarated. I gaze upon this girl who has been sending light to me through the walls, through this city, for the first time. Naomi, with her blonde hair, pale skin and ice blue eyes; stares back at me. I look down at her and Emily's joined hands.

"Interesting," I muse with a delighted smile. I almost think I hear two heart beats, just then. I strain my hearing to try and catch it. Emily? No, it cannot be. Her heart has not beat for over two centuries and from what I know of the undead, it can never beat again. What is that sound then? Curse it for tormenting me with its rhythm, desire. No, it cannot be Emily's heart. It is so faint, almost beyond my hearing; but I swear it is there.

I move myself towards Emily and say nonsense to her, kissing her dispassionately on the lips. She responds equally unenthralled. I stare the whole time into the icebergs of Naomi's eyes. The ice there is cool blue and sparkling, I am lost for a second but I recover in time to see her flinch.

"Interesting," I say again bemused. She mutters that _"I'm fucking cryptic," _and I'm so amused and delighted by her, so fascinated with her daring and her fearlessness. She is a believer, I can tell. Very few people really are, you know? There are so few who are that kind of bold. To believe in the unseen, to welcome the random and reckless, to challenge fate, even I admire the _'true'_ believers. Most people pay it lip service, but Naomi; she lives it. She breathes it, every single second of her life. She is the one to walk upon the water of the stormy seas, the one to sip the water turned to wine, the one who would walk with the dark children of the night; the one who wouldn't bat a lash at any of it. She just believes it. I smile at her now, as cryptically as she thinks inside her head. Emily warns me _"not to hurt her." _

Emily isn't a believer, she never has been. She has been the one who has been _"the protector."_ She is the practical one, thinking of the reasons, the consequences of wanting anything. She has talked herself out of happiness as long as she has existed, but never once into it. There is too much to consider. What will happen? How will this affect those around me? She has never been one to _"feel it."_ Never been a believer like Naomi is. Naomi can not do anything but believe and Emily can only build walls. It would be quite funny, if it was not sad. And it is. I mean, I love Emily like family and here she is suffering the excruciating delight of falling in love and I can do nothing to ease her pain.

Because it is painful, falling in love. There is so much to deny yourself, so many reasons why you are not worthy of it. So many things to talk yourself out of, _"No she didn't look at me that way,"_ or _"She didn't touch me on purpose, why would she?"_ What a shame, even before we were monsters; that we were such fragile, broken little things. We could be so beautiful, if only we would let ourselves go. But forever is such a long time when you have lost your way.

Naomi and I banter back and forth and she makes me smile, makes me laugh. It has been a long time since anyone has made me laugh like that. So daring, she is. So beautifully reckless, I admire it in her. "It's a shame you're a lycan, because I really _do_ like you."

She stares at me somewhat dumbfounded, but still beautifully. I smirk like a smarmy politician. I feel oddly at ease with her, so the thought of killing her seems almost unpalatable. The thought of the silver liquid worming its way through her bloodstream, to her heart; stopping its beautiful rhythm forever makes me shudder externally. It is atrocious to think of and it's the first time I've ever felt that way. I want to give her chances, reasons to stay alive; but I have a feeling she already has one.

"So, why shouldn't I kill you?" I say bluntly staring into the cool blue waters of her eyes.

Naomi dips her head slightly then gazes at me from beneath a curtain of blonde, before she raises her voice and says; "I'm quite pretty, hell of a werewolf, smashing dancer. Oh, I make you laugh and you like me?"

I chuckle loudly again. "You're pretty adorable when you get right down to it, Naomi." I smile. No wonder she likes you.

"Who," Naomi asks simply.

"Emily of course, she is the reason you're not dead already." I move closer to Naomi's cage looking into her eyes the whole time I do. She studies my movements out of simple curiousity. I glide across the floor, moving with poise and grace. I like to toy with people, get inside of them and work my way out. Find out who they really are. I have been told it's an annoying habit, but it's what I do. Who are you really? Take off your mask for me. I will lay your soul bare before me, pale white and quivering. Right now, I want to strip the layers from Naomi and make her writhe in discomfort. I flip the switch inside of myself. _Stop liking her so much._

"What makes you think I'll let you have her?" I spit.

"What? Have? Are you mad? You don't own Emily!" Naomi responds fiercely.

I love her fearlessness so much.

I calm down immediately and smile at her serenely. She looks at me as if I have gone mad. I have, many times, a lifetime ago. Once there was a girl like me, who thought like me and moved like me – she heard the voices, saw the light and it bled her dry. Sucked out the marrow from her bones and threw her into the abyss. Now she dwells in it forever, only finding clarity when the lights stop humming, the voices no longer permeate the walls and the lights stop dancing with their cruel torment. Sometimes, I can not hear it. Sometimes, all is still and the abyss fades away. Sometimes, when Katherine is near; I hear and see nothing and it is beautiful. I smile thinking of her, grinning like a simpleton. Naomi is rolling her eyes at me, I think she's pondering circling her finger around her temple to indicate that _"I'm a loon,"_ but who would she bother indicating that to? We both know that I am.

I recover slowly removing the smile from my face and say simply, "I don't know what to do with you, Naomi."

Naomi bites her lip and eyes me nervously. "You can't hurt me, you promised Emily."

"I know," I say simply. "And I don't really want to, but I can't let you roam about 'free' either."

"You don't have to let me go," Naomi says thinking. "Just let me out, you can keep me here. But this cage is bloody uncomfortable. Can't I just stay close to one of you?"

"Oh, I can guess which one of us you'd like to stay close to," I say teasingly with a broad grin sweeping across my face.

Naomi blushes furiously. "Now, you _are _reading my mind aren't you?"

I chuckle. "Yes, and you are a filthy, filthy girl, Naomi." 

"Oh god," she says crossing her arms across her and looking down. "You can stop now."

"Oh, but the things you've thought about her," I bite my lip smiling. "They are…delightful."

Naomi waves her hand at me, trying to wipe the perverted grin from my face. "You, stop. Stop thinking about Emily that way, you don't want her _'that way'_. I don't want you to."

I laugh expressively. We are talking almost as if we were friends now. I can see in another lifetime, us being close. Both of us, closed off, wanting love, not knowing how to open our arms and just reach for it. Grab the thing that would make us happiest without also destroying it. Our desire is a tiny bird, flitting on our shoulders, beady eyes shining. We could hold it close to us, let it feel our warmth. But we could also destroy it with our darkness, crush it with our want. Leave it lying broken and still at our feet. I understand her immediately in that moment, in many ways she and I, are the same.

"I will let you out of this cage," I blurt out suddenly.

"What? Really? I mean, okay," Naomi says kind of slowly as if she thinks I'm lying.

"Seriously, I will." I say rising to move to the bars clutching them. We are close now to each other and I can see the light dance around her playfully. I am not afraid of her, she is not afraid of me. How odd to feel at ease with a stranger. How odd to sink in that comfortable space near them and fit like the lost piece of a puzzle. I know she's noticed this as well. We are connected already, I smile warmly at her.

"Emily is busy, however." I say honestly. "You will have to stay close to Katie for now."

"Katie the Vampire," Naomi says chuckling.

I push my smile to a fiendish grin. "Don't let Katherine hear you mocking her, she'll fucking go berserk. She's Katie _Fucking_ Fitch after all," I finish shrugging.

Naomi smiles at me, chuckling again. "Okay."

"Seriously, Emily's twin means business Naomi. She's an adorably feisty spitfire." I say honestly tilting my head and smiling wistfully.

"Hmmm, now who's the one thinking dirty things?" Naomi jokes.

"Don't quit your day job, Naomi," I say cheekily. "I'll think the 'dirty' things later."

"Wait, did you say _'Emily's twin'_?" Naomi says rather loudly.

I laugh. "Yes, I did. And thank whatever gods may be, you don't have a 'twin fetish'; because if you did, Emily would rip your arm off."

"Oy! Stop reading my bloody mind, you _pointy toothed jerk_!" The blonde says her shoulders shaking helplessly with her expressive laughter.

"Deal, for now," I say smiling. I cannot help but like her. _Three words: Pointy. Toothed. Jerk._

I move towards the door and move to unlatch it, turning around with a genuine grin. "You really have to steel yourself for the 'the other Fitch'. She's a hurricane of leopard print and gold, but I adore her. Treat her with respect and you will have mine."

"Deal," Naomi says honestly grinning at me.

I never would have imagined for all the world, that I would like 'a lycan,' our sworn enemies. War is hell, it really is. If there were no price to pay for adoring her, I would do it in a second; a million times over. But there is, and perhaps by liking her enough to 'trust her; I have doomed us all.


	7. Playhouses

**A/N: *cuddles reviewers* Yay! My kitten paws are tired, but I'm glad you enjoyed "Effy's perspective." I plunk away happy, knowing my incessant mewing is bringing joy. Review away, my sweet chinchillas.**

**Bristol, England – Present Day – (Katie Fucking Fitch)**

I'm going to kill her. I swear to god, or something, or whatever! I don't have time to babysit some _"stray"_ that Emily picked up. I could kill her for being so transparent. You pulled another blonde? God Ems, less obvious much? You certainly aren't subtle. I, on the other hand, am the definition of subtlety. I adjust my tight black bodice, smooth the folds of my leopard print skirt and check my hair and gold hoop earrings. I certainly can't meet this bizarre lycan girl and not look my best. I'm so mad at Effy that I could ring her slender, ivory neck. No, maybe I'll just give her some shit about it later. Sometimes I like to joke with her in a sexual fashion and that seems to rile her up. Believe me when I say, very little does. She seems all nervous and sweaty when I do that, I think it's the one thing that bothers her. No ringing her neck, maybe just a little teasing, after all. Emily on the other hand, I may just choke this time.

The clicking of my heels on the tile foor, falls in rhythm of the cadence of my walk. I shift my hips and _"work the hell out of my outfit_" as I burst through the door. "Alright then," I shout. "Let's get this shit over with!" I look at this mysterious blonde really well, for the first time. She is lovely. She's taller than Emily, typical. Pale skin, even paler blue eyes that grab you when they lock with yours, it throws me a little; but I'd never admit that to anyone.

"Are you Katie?" she sputters.

I roll my eyes at her. "Who the fuck else would I be? I look like Emily don't I? Emily's twin? Not rocket science there, babes."

This blonde flinches under my steely gaze but studies me carefully. "Yeah," she breathes "but you're so different."

"Jesus Christ, do you have a 'thing' for me as well?"

"No. No. I mean, no." she sputters nervously and it makes me laugh.

"Well we'll get along fine then. We don't do, _'twin things.'_ Got it?" I shift my weight to one hip and quirk my eyebrow in a menacing fashion. Just because I'm small doesn't mean I'm not a hurricane of _"I will fuck you up." _

"Got it, got it." This blonde says waving her hands in front of her slender body.

I raise my eyebrow again then sigh exasperated. "Effy!" I yell. She's got the key that I need to unlock this girl's cage. How inconvenient.

"So, I'm Naomi," the blonde starts. I put my hand up to silence her.

I hear Effy's footsteps as she comes down the hallway. I turn my back to Naomi and await Effy's arrival. She smiles as she sees me and I return the smile warmly. Effy calms me somehow just with her gentle presence, the soft silences, reassuring glances and delicate touches upon my hands. I feel that there lies within me, a tempest that only she knows how to calm. A stormy sea that only she, can venture out upon and return unscathed; I should tell her sometime. But how do you tell someone such a thing? How do you tell them that they are your life preserver on the sinking ship of your soul? How do you say it? The words sit awkward and cramped within me and I'm afraid that if they ever spill out; they'll be strange and terrible, covered in damp, soft, moss. I try to raise within me the sunken feelings of my enormous past, but they are heavy and dull. She is the darkness that I love to dwell in and she pulls out shapes within me that I never knew existed. They twist and turn inside me, pulling my insides taut and trembling. There has never been a right time, over two fucking centuries and I have never been able to tell her what she means to me. She has always been there, right from the beginning.

After Emily and I were turned, we knew nothing of being vampires. Fumbling blindly, leaving evidence, hungry and wanting. We weren't subtle. It is all about subtlety, this life. If you are not, then you cease to exist. Emily and I ended up feasting on vermin and the lowest creatures of the Earth. It did nothing for my complexion, believe me. Effy found us and taught us how to live as vampires, how to be. She guided us in _'this' _life and saved us from oblivion. How do you say thank you for that? How do you begin? Honestly, if I only knew how, things could be so beautiful. I just know it.

I snap back to reality and move to Effy putting my arms around her and pressing my body flush against her, hugging her. "Hey babes," I whisper in her ear. It is one part torture, one part seriousness, why must I be such a bitch? I hear her breath hitch in her throat and her breathing seems to be shallower. _I knew this bothered her._ I continue my assault. I move my mouth to her ear again and lick it slowly. "I. Need. That. Key," I say taking my hand and reaching around her body, sliding it down slowly to the perfect curve of her ass. Effy's body is shaking now. _God, I'm so good at this. _She trembles lightly as she pulls the key from her jacket and quickly pushes me off of her in the most gentle way possible. She nervously rakes her hand through her curly brown locks and looks down at the floor. She's so fragile looking sometimes, so delicate. Sometimes I want to scoop her up, wrap my arms around her and secure her within the eye of my raging storm. _No one will hurt you here._ I think to myself.

I hear Naomi cough behind us.

"Does the puppy have kennel cough?" I spit sarcastically.

"Cute," I hear her say, less than pleased.

Effy regains her calm and serene exterior. "Katherine, Naomi is our guest. I have decided to let her exist with us here for now. Take it easy on her."

"Anything you want babes," I say seriously. "And I mean anything," I finish, still teasing. Slowly running my hands down each side of my body, I think I notice Effy tremble.

"Oh my God," I hear Naomi say exasperated. "Alright, you don't need to torture me. I give. Watching this is more torturous than I can bear." She laughs as she finishes.

"You seem quite glib for someone who just lost everything to being a werewolf." I spit sarcastically back at her. We are two sides of the same coin, Naomi and I. Brash and reckless, fearlessly daring each other to go farther than either of us thinks possible. It could be a good thing, but it could also be dangerous. Pushing someone farther than they are ready for leads to only two things; greatness or disaster. Majesty or destruction, which one will it be? I've never quite known. As the seconds of my eternity tick away, I'm always deciding things. Often choosing wrong, but that's the only way I know. Emily has always been the one with discipline, with reserve. I have always been the opposite, explosive and wild.

"Katherine," Effy chastises.

"Sorry babes, sorry," I say lifting my arm feebly and pushing it slowly through my dark brown locks.

Effy smiles at me and my stomach lurches within me. _God, what was that?_ Her darkness is pulling those shapes out again, I feel different, I feel strange; but it feels wonderful. Effy moves to Naomi's cage silently and unlocks the door. She pulls the dark iron door open and it swings slowly, Naomi's eyes follow it. Staring at the empty space it has left behind. Slowly she brings her long legs through one at a time. She's wearing a pair of Effy's jeans (no way would Emily's fit her) and one of Emily's shirts. _"The Smiths – The Queen is Dead," nice choice Emsy. _Effy turns to me to speak.

"Katherine, take Naomi with you and get supplies. She will shadow your every move. Be wary of other Lycans, avoid them."

I nod in understanding.

"Be safe," she continues. "I couldn't bear it if something happened to you."

I smile outwardly and move to her again, in honesty and devotion this time. "I promise I'll be careful. I swear it." I put one hand on either side of Effy's face and kiss her lips lightly. I fill it with my love and devotion. It feels different, I feel different, but I feel electric and my skin is humming and my soul is burning wildly. When I move away, Effy is blushing lightly and it is so cute, so gorgeous, I just might faint. I recover to yell at Naomi.

"Come on then. I haven't got all night," I grasp at Naomi's arm and pull her along behind me as she and Effy share some kind of bizarre look between them.

I move down the corridor with Naomi in silence as we approach my room. I pull her inside and push my hand up, indicating that she halt.

"I'm not your dog, you know." She says flatly.

"I. I'm sorry. I just don't know how to 'be' with people sometimes. It's not my strong suit."

"S'okay," she says simply. "So do you like Effy?"

"What? I mean, yeah. Of course I do, she's like family to me." I sputter somewhat confused. "What business of that is yours anyways?"

"It's just," she starts looking away from me. "I think she really likes you and you toy with her like that, it seems cruel."

"What?" I stare wide eyed at Naomi. I've never thought of myself as cruel with Effy. I tease her sure, but she's always been so shy and quiet about it all. I thought it was funny. I found every reason I could to be near her, to talk to her. Sometimes, I hold her while she sleeps. Occasionally, I play with her hair and find reasons to brush my fingertips against her smooth pale skin. Sometimes I could feel her shaking against me, I never thought about anything but how it made me feel, dizzy and infinite, weightless and free. _Fuck .Fuck .Fuck. I'm in love with Effy._ I stand there staring at Naomi in uncomfortable silence. I've just been split open, gutted wide and everything was spilling out of me like a river of blood.

I stammer. "I'm not, I'm not gay."

"I never said that you were," Naomi says quietly. "And you don't have to be, but if you care about her, you should tell her."

"I should say the same to you," I retort sarcastically. It's my defense mechanism. _Why can't I be less guarded? Why do I always resort to this?_

"I already did," Naomi says lowering her eyes to the ground, then looking back up. "She doesn't want me."

"Bullshit," I say, happy that I've managed to change the subject. "Emily is scared. She's the disciplined one and she's the shy one, Naomi. You have to fight for her, make her believe it. She talks a tough game, but that isn't who she is. I know her best, we're blood. I don't care if you're a lycan, but if you hurt her; I will kill you. I've known since the moment I met you that I'll either 'love you' or 'kill you' but I would do either passionately."

"Thanks, I guess." Naomi says equally sarcastic. "I don't know what the future will bring, but I'd like it to be with her. I don't ever want the sun to set upon me without being next to her. Is that odd? I barely know her."

"You're a believer, Naomi. You're the brave one, but you have the hardest path to travel. You have to wait for her to realize she loves you too, wait for her to feel that ache and burn in your presence. The string that pulls at your heart, pulls at her too. You have to wait for her to feel it."

"You're not what I expected, Katie." The blonde says smiling warmly at me.

"Yeah," I say smiling warmly back. "I like surprises."

I gather my weapons and prepare to take Naomi out into the night. We have errands to run, it sounds ridiculous, but it's true. We have to find blood. It is a regrettable part of our existence but a necessary one. My job is to keep us both safe and return us home, avoiding any lycans in the process. They could tear me asunder and steal Naomi away from us, perhaps recruiting her into their army. It's not an easy task, but I'm Katie Fucking Fitch. I can handle it. I strap a gun to my thigh and conceal one inside my bodice.

"Alright let's go." I say finally.

We move towards the entrance and glide slowly into the soft Bristol night. The air is cool and damp and I notice the blonde shiver slightly. I stop walking.

"You need a jacket." I say simply.

"Nah, I'm fine. I can handle it." The tall blonde asserts.

"You're shivering all over like a damn leaf in the wind." I point out obviously.

"Okay, fine," she says hopping up and down to try and get warm. "Can we go back for a jacket?"

I sigh rubbing my temples. "Yeah, I guess."

As soon as I turn around, I smell it. Lycans, a lot of them, suddenly near us. I grab Naomi's arm and begin to run. I feel rather than see a fist, strike my face. I sprawl backwards falling on top of Naomi awkwardly. I take back what I said about 'liking surprises.' When I look up, I see four lycans standing before me. Out numbered. Fuck. _"Effy!"_ I call out in my mind. I know she'll hear me above all the noise and static, above the raucous cacophony of sound that throbs in her ears and beyond the blazing lights she says dance around us. _She will hear me._ One of the lycans puts his foot upon my throat as he sneers down at me, a gold chain hangs glinting from his neck as he speaks.

"Hello, Katiekins. Been a long time, how are things?" His boyish good looks belie his dark intent.

"Hello Freddie," I spit. "I can't say I've missed you, my little fun sponge."

He slaps me across the face for my insolence.

"Now, now, that is not a nice way to treat a former boyfriend," he coos at me sarcastically.

Naomi just stares at me and I feel her trembling. _Where is Effy?_

"We're taking this girl with us," he shouts. "She's one of us. You'll never understand her."

"Over my luscious dead body," I spit.

"Always the humble one, aren't you dear; even to the last." Freddie says softly pulling out a crossbow with a wooden bolt carved to a sharp point. "How do you want it, lover? Fast or slow."

"You always went for 'fast' before, what's stopping you now?" I spit.

I am rewarded by another punch to the face. _Fuck. Why can't I keep my mouth shut?_

"Your wish is my command, my dear." He lowers the crossbow and takes aim for my heart. My heart, my heart that I feared was an empty space cold and damp. It is filled with something I found foreign and strange, something so beautiful and wild. Love. I love Effy Stonem. Then suddenly I don't feel so bad about it all ending, I love someone and that is beautiful. That is more wonderful than the entirety of my existence. I face oblivion unafraid. I just know that if anything is eternal, love is. My love will exist long after I am gone, exist to hold her close. To calm her tears and quell her rage, I will never get to kiss her lips again and for that I am sorry. I squandered so much time, I thought we had forever. I become enraged suddenly thinking of the loss of her touch. I leap forward and let out a guttural yell as I make my move to sink my teeth into Freddie's neck. The crossbow fires, I hear Naomi scream. The wooden bolt punctures my chest, but misses my heart. I punch Freddie in the face. "Nice try, fuck face." I yell.

The other lycans are running to catch Naomi who knows she is helpless when she is not a wolf, leaving Freddie to me. "Get off me, who the fuck do you think you are?" He howls into the night.

I yell back as I tear at the tender flesh beneath my fingertips and punch at him again, his blood splashing upon my face. "I'm Katie Fucking Fitch, who the Fuck are you?"

Suddenly I hear a gunshot and stop my assault. Standing meters from us in all her glory, the beautiful Effy Stonem. I release Freddie and he runs like hell. Suddenly, I'm standing in the street with blood on my face and hands, splattered like paint all over my delicate skin. I lick my lips as I look at Effy. She smiles at me. "Where's Naomi?"

I look around bewildered and ashamed. _Fuck. I really, really hate surprises. Emily is going to fucking kill me. _

Okay children, what I said about subtlety. It really is key. It really is what equals survival or disaster. But when I think of the look upon my sister's face and the breaking of her heart, subtlety is the last thing I'm thinking of.

"Wait until I find those Lycans," I yell. "I am going to fuck somebody up!"

**Well, if you like my adorable face and my story…review me.**


	8. Wolf Like Me

**A/N: My dearest sweet chinchillas, I am working long hours but never doubt that I adore you. For your reviews give me the power to plunk away after such grueling kitten work. I love your faces, each and everyone. **

**Somewhere in England – Present Day – (Naomi)**

The terror has sprung to life within me, raging and howling. My feet hit the pavement with brisk, yet heavy steps. Four heavy bodies pin me down quickly and my scream is muffled by a tan, blood stained hand. He draws his teeth into a menacing grin. "Welcome to our family, Naomi. Welcome home." I shudder at his words as they glide across my skin in the wrong direction, rubbing it raw. Home. No. Home will never be with him, with them. Home is wherever my beautiful brunette with dark brown eyes calls home, wherever Emily is. My heart pounds in my chest and I feel angry and alone. She doesn't feel the same way. Or does she? Will I ever get the chance to know? Will she come for me? Perhaps she will not and that hollow ache will haunt me forever. If I had never met her, I would've never known. Never had the chance to experience such exquisite beauty, such a powerful ache; that stirs my limbs and burns my lungs. Making my heart feel like it's bursting within me.

My body begins to throb and ache, with fury and sadness, for her. And it's all for her, always for her. Ever since the second I laid eyes upon her. They are transporting me somewhere, I can't tell as I'm bound and blindfolded. I call out to Effy in my head, perhaps she can hear me. Maybe she will guide me safely to Emily's arms. I laugh at myself internally. _Pathetic, Naomi. Real pathetic. _

The journey seems long, hours perhaps, maybe days. Millennia, since I last saw my beautiful brunette and in my fatigue I drop into a fitful sleep. I dream of one thing, the only thing I can think of. I dream of Emily. She is crying, I do not know why. Her dark hair shields her gorgeous eyes, but I can see her body trembling I can feel the pain coming off of her in waves. I can smell her hair, apples. Sweet and soft, she's just so sweet and soft. I want to wrap myself up in this dream, comfort her with my kisses. My lips would glide against hers like silk. My heart would pound out a rhythm for her to fall asleep to. She would never want for anything ever again.

A loud bang wakes me from my dream. I curse myself for being so hopelessly devoted to someone who doesn't even care. _God how lame Naomi, snap out of it._ I mentally scold myself like a child. I promised I would be brave and maybe the bravest thing of all; would be learning not to care about her. Not to think about her. No, that would be impossible. But maybe, that ache will fade over time and maybe home is where you make it. Not a person, not a place, but only within yourself. Surely you understand. You take only yourself with you, wherever you go. _You can learn to live without her._ My heart screams at me from within, rebelling at the very notion. _This pain is exquisite, what is it? Is this 'falling in love?' Is this it?_ I thought it would feel so different, I thought it would be so much more, controlled. But it isn't. It's dark and wild and filled with hunger and longing. It is consuming me from within and I burn. I burn and burn. Perhaps I will blaze throughout all my eternities. The light I cast, visible from space.

I am suddenly pulled from my reveries, unbound and my blindfold removed. An old run down cathedral is the lycan hideout, clever. Perhaps the whole vampire 'religion' myth is one of the few 'true' myths left. Freddie is leaning against the altar, against the tall wooden shape of the cross. He smiles at me.

"You are beautiful," he breathes.

"Don't get your hopes up there Romeo, I'm taken," I blurt. _How very smooth Naomi._

He laughs expressively. "You're fearless, I like that."

"Good for you," I spit sarcastically.

"Oh, you are going to be the death of me aren't you?" He says again chuckling.

"If we are both very lucky," I mutter under my breath.

"Hmmm," He says craning his neck as if to hear me better. He has scratches all up and down his tan arms and a few choice bite marks just below his collar bone. _Thank you Katie Fucking Fitch, you are a quite the tiny hurricane._

"They will come for me," I say suddenly assured of myself. "You shouldn't have taken me."

"You think they'll come for you?" His laughter is boyish and loud. It echoes throughout the cathedral and I hear the screeching of bats somewhere in the distance.

"Yes." I mutter.

He laughs again. "Why? Do you think they like you? They can't even begin to understand you. I understand you. I know what you are. That dark little thing that lurks inside you yearning to be free, I know its name. Your heart slamming against your ribcage, you think you're the first to feel it? No, others have felt like you do, like we do. We are werewolves, Naomi; powerful and strong, noble and brave. You are not one of them. They are vampires, capricious and fickle, shallow and cruel."

The things he says move like mercury in my mind. Sliding back and forth through my insecurities and making my heart ache, making my mind burn. The ache is painful and dull. The way he describes them, they aren't like that at all. I think of Emily's soft lips, her gorgeous smile, her pale skin, her deep brown eyes; I snap myself out of my reverie.

"Wait," he begins suspiciously. "You like one of them don't you?"

"No, I mean. No." I sputter again. _Damn it Naomi._

He chuckles. "I've been down that road my dear, look at me." I look at the blood upon his face from Katie's fury and upon his clothes and arms. "Really look at me. Don't you see the destruction they will do to you if you let them? Which one is it then, Cook?"

I shuffle awkwardly.

"No," he says. "One of the ladies then? God, tell me it's not Katie."

I start nervously playing with my hands, really nervously.

"Emily," he finally asks. "Is it Emily?"

Yes. It has always been Emily. When has it never not been Emily? I fidget even more recklessly, pulling at a small hole in my shirt. Digging my finger into it, hoping to pull from it an answer that won't seem as pathetic as mine is. It is a shirt that she had given me.

"Oh God," he says laughing lightly again. "It is Emily. Your face, your poor little face, you've got it bad don't you?"

"Shut up!" I yell.

"Now that's just sad. You know how she is don't you? She's quite a lady killer, Naomi. All the girls fall for Emily. All the girls do and she destroys them."

I don't want to believe him. That doesn't seem like her. She seemed so gentle and kind, even beneath the tough exterior that she tried to show me. There was tenderness there, I could feel it. As I stared into her eyes, I knew what kind of person she was. I was no 'Effy' however, could I be wrong? Freddie had lived much longer than I probably could imagine and knew them before I ever did. I gripped at my hair and growled in frustration.

I have to find her again. I do not care if she is a wolf like me. It does not matter what has brought me to her. Those ties that bind us tight to each other, the ones she does not realize are there. They exist whether anyone else wants them to, the inertia of relationship exists still. We will go on, even if I am not there. Even if she is not there, we will go on.

"You're here because you are special, Naomi. Two hundred years have brought the lycan species down to you. You have something we all want. Something we all need to know."

"What? I don't have anything. I don't understand what you're talking about." I sputter.

"You're an anomaly, an aberration."

"You're doing wonders for my self-esteem, you know?" I say sarcastically.

"You will learn your gift. We will take you to 'the Endless' and you will know." He says reverently.

"Christ, isn't there any supernatural creature that isn't fucking cryptic?" I yell exasperated.

"You will know. Because you have to know and we have to know with you." Freddie says simply.

"Fuck. I just, I just want to see Emily," I say softly.

"I know," he says comfortingly and moves to me to embrace me. "I know and you will, eventually. I promise."

"I can't, I can't help you if it means hurting Emily." I say trying to push away from Freddie's embrace.

"Shhhhh," he says still holding me with a measure of force I find awkward and kind of scary. It is certainly not comforting, "I'm not giving you a choice, kiddo." He spits. "You're lycan which means you help us. I don't care who you want to shag. You can shag her _'before'_ if you like."

"Before what," I dumbly ask.

He laughs again still holding me, his head resting on top of mine. "Before we kill them all," he says coldly.

My heart is frozen in ice. The very thought of doing anything to hurt her makes my insides scream and tremble. I know that I was created to protect and love her, but never, ever, hurt her. Ever. I imagine that at some point in my life, I might have been weak enough to hurt someone as lovely as her. Weak enough to fail every instinct in my fucking body and betray my very soul. But I am not weak now, I am no coward. I try to wrestle free from Freddie's grasp and he holds me fast with measured strength. I begin to cry hard and I begin finally to scream.

My screams are anguished and my chest becomes racked with sobs. Every scream after that sounds strangled and strange in my throat, vibrating my chest. Freddie lets me scream. I guess we must be very far away from anything, from anyone. It fills me with longing and the emptiness creeps in on me, slowly like a wounded dog, coiling at my feet. I try to run and find a tan petite girl waiting by the cathedral's heavy wooden doors. "Hello luv," she says softly.

"Let…let me out." I say shakily.

"I can't do that," she says softly again.

"Please, why are you doing this?" I ask hopelessly.

"You will understand in time. I'm Karen by the way. We're going to become such wonderful friends."

She says it, but the meaning isn't there. I am not connected to her. It's not like it was with Effy. It's not that instant moment of recognition, that realization of familiarity, even though you are strangers. I don't want to be her friend. I finally realize how my life has changed. The simplicity I had lost. I had viewed my life as a burden, but now that it had been lifted from me; all I wanted was to have it back. I wanted to bear it and let its weight crush me. I wanted to haul 'the cross of my life' up its weary hills. I wanted to stumble, I wanted to sprawl out on the ground and feel the gravel tear up my hands. I wanted to feel it all, everything. All I wanted was to live again. Suddenly, I felt someone slide up behind me and I spun around on my feet in time to see Freddie's fist connect with my face. Everything goes black. Everything is darkness, forever dwelling only in the dark.

When I awake this time I am in a cavern. Freddie and Karen have me under each arm. Candles flicker and the flames dance with abandon, casting our shadows upon the rocky walls as we make our way down a narrow passage way. I do not struggle in their arms. I let my feet move one after the other, like a man marching to his execution. My intake of breath is sharp and my heart hums a hollow rhythm. Everything seems so…pointless. My despair has taken hold of me, seized me by my throat and was choking out everything else. I felt like I should be brave but my bravery was lost. Somewhere, a beautiful brunette held it in the palm of her hand, bright and quivering. Somewhere, her dark eyes blazed a trail across it and held it out to me to grab hold of. I just can't see where there is to get to. I left everything with her, in that damp room. My bravery, my soul and my heart; she has them all. They are bound to her, like the bones are to skin. Entwined with her, moving with her; I don't think she even knows it yet. Can she feel it? Can she feel it with every step she takes? The string that is pulling at my heart is so taut and sharp, that it stabs me like a knife. Can she feel it?

The pathway opens up into a large chamber, where several pale beings stand in robes. Their hair is unkempt and their eyes are shiny black, the whiteness swallowed by the dark. Everything gets swallowed by the dark. I eye their statuesque forms. They eye me with hollow observance. As if I do not exist. As if I am not standing before them in tattered jeans and a torn shirt, my bare feet padding against the soft earth. Their vacant stares and cold gazes make me shiver involuntarily. They are ash white and lean, toned muscle with every sinew and vein pushing forth, screaming out to you. They do not seem real. I am shocked as they begin to speak.

"You are she."

"Holy fucking Christ," I yell startled in the empty cavern and my voice echoes slightly.

An amused grin adorns one of their faces. The others remain stone faced.

"We have much to show you, Naomi. So much depends on you. Only you will decide the outcome to these unending ages of war."

Be careful what you wish for my friends. For the price of getting what you wish for, is getting what you wish for. I have just been told that the entirety of the lycan-kind depends on me. One cross is replaced with another. One destiny begins to unfold, but I do not care about any of that. I am certain you know what I am about to say, I am certain you feel it. I will follow the end the thread that is pulling at my heart, until it leads me back to her. If it takes centuries, if it takes eons, I am capturing every single night we spend apart. Saving the memory of them, to share with her; there is nothing else. No matter what they try to convince me of, my mind will be chanting it. My heart will be hammering it out into the darkness. It will not be swallowed, it will not be silenced. It will be my voice, when I can not find it.

"We shall now begin the trials, Naomi." A pale being says to me monotonously.

"Trials? Oh, this just keeps getting better and better."


	9. Stork & Owl

**A/N: Okay. So Naomi's "wildly romantic," I make no apologies. I am too. I hope you enjoy. Anyhow, my fluffy kitten logic rules out in the end. I am plunking away with fluffy paws, all for you my lovelies. Please review me, it makes me purr softly.**

**Bristol, England – Present Day – (Emily)**

Fuck. Cook and I are always paired off together, as if we get along in any way shape or form. Two centuries of random bickering and perverted jokes. Two centuries. Do you realize how old _"that's what she said"_ jokes become after the 1st century, let alone the 2nd? If he does not shut up, I am likely to throw myself in front of the first stray wooden stake that comes my way. The two of us are charged with taking care to preserve and store the blood we feed on. If necessary we pick up an indigent person for a new source of life's sweetest essence. I do not want to share any of this with Naomi. I am a monster. I look like a girl, with smooth dark hair, shiny dark eyes and soft pale skin; but underneath I am a beast inside. She wants something from me that I ache to give her, but cannot bare to. It has long lay dead within me. It is dry and brittle and echoes in my chest. Sometimes I can still feel it, though. I can still feel it ache.

When I look in Naomi's piercing eyes, I see the hope and expectation. I see the desperate dreams of a lovelorn soul. I do not need to be Effy, to read her mind. I choose to ignore it. Her gaze burns through me like the sun, the weight of it crushing me, suffocating me with its want. I desperately long to be someone else, someone that is capable of giving her these things that she desires. I long for a different past and a different future. What good can come from wanting? The suffering wanting things has caused, is crushing me. I am ever so tired of it.

But I do, want her so badly it is killing me. I do not want to _'fall in love'_ with her. I want to feel her writhe beneath me. I want to attack her mouth with my own, feeling my tongue invade it harshly. I want to see her body glistening in the soft moonlight as we fuck all night long. _I do not want to fall in love._ I chant it in my head, over and over. _I do not want to fall in love. _Just then, something stabs at me so hard that I feel like I could die. I choose to ignore it. I am a monster, after all. All I have to do is avoid her eyes, if I can do that I'll be fine. In them, she spins worlds where we are together. Worlds where I am lying next to her in a warm room sunlight bathing us in its warm glow, worlds so very far away from where we are. In her bright eyes glistening, I see her heart laid bare. _I do not want to fall in love._

I move beside Cook in our blood emporium, stacking, filing and counting. It is funny. Being undead I never thought I would have to work an office job. I chuckle to myself softly. See, that's the thing; it is one thing knowing '_what'_ someone _'is'_ but it is quite another knowing '_who'_ they really _'are.'_ The darkness lurking inside of them coiled up and waiting; nestled in the dark spaces of my soul. The thought of her knowing all of this, what we do to survive; turns my stomach. I look around the dirty structure with beetles methodically crawling across the concrete floor, soft light filtering in through hastily spray painted windows. This is no life for someone like her. Someone so gentle and pure of heart, there is so much passion on the surface of her soul. It is breathtaking. She has such a tender head and weary heart. I cannot be the one to break it. I simply cannot. I make up my mind firmly, denying my raging heart aching in my chest. It has long been dead, but is now; somehow so alive. Cook turns to me and smiles.

"Hey Emilio, man. Whatcha' thinkin' bout?" He says smiling brightly, boyishly at me.

"Nothing. Just, nothing. Why?" I say softly.

"There's an awful lot of smiling going on, for nothing. You thinkin' about Blondie? She's fit, yeah?" He says grinning wildly, wiggling his eyebrows.

I sigh and rub my temples. "Yes, she is 'fit.' I would 'nail her,'" I say making air quotes, my voice as monotone as I can force it to be.

He laughs boisterously at me, smiling. "Emilio, that's the horniest thing I've heard you say in ages."

I smile weakly at him. Brushing a few strands of my dark hair out of my face, continuing to catalog our blood supply.

"Hey, if you don't want to have a go at her, do you mind if I do?" He says hopefully.

I stare at him for a moment. The thought of Cook groping at her, kissing her makes my blood boil a little. I am not going to lie. I get flashes of him pushing her against a desk of all things, clumsily groping at her, she kisses back. I shudder.

"What's it gonna be little one?" He says patting his stomach area, dangerously close to his groin. "I think I'm gonna go see her in a minute." He finishes smiling at me.

"Psssh," I scoff. "She wouldn't be interested in you."

"Oh, yeah?" He says obviously taking it as a challenge.

"No, I mean. I just think it's a bad idea." I say somewhat flustered.

"Yeah? I like a little danger now and then," he says smiling at me again.

"I just, I mean. Cook, don't." I say.

"Shhhh." He says patting my arm softly. "I won't. I understand."

"How can you? Even I don't understand." I say somewhat defeated. The hollow thud of my heart almost seems audible. I swear I can hear it.

Suddenly Effy and Katie burst into the room hand in hand. Katie's face is flecked with splattered blood, lycan blood.

"What happened to you two?" I sputter.

Katie stares at me in silence and Effy looks up at the ceiling, almost avoiding my eyes. My eyes are dark and tumultuous; almost stabbing at them with their silent questioning. Katie moves forward with a helpless look in her eyes, which frightens me because it is the first time she's ever looked at me that way. 

"Katie, what's wrong?" I say now paranoid and suspicious.

"Ems," she begins. "Don't be mad okay? It's just we went out to get more blood and she got cold, then we went back for a jacket and shit started happening. I lost her. Freddie hit me and shit got real…"

She is babbling.

"Katie, what are you talking about? Stop. Lost who? What is going on?" I plead to them both. Effy steps forward and looks me straight in the eyes before speaking.

"Naomi is gone. Freddie has her." Her face is solemn but her eyes are probing into me. Poking at my soul for some spark, some sign of the flame Naomi has caused, that burns with in me.

"What? Fuck old 'fun sponge!' Let's get her back!" Cook shouts boistrously.

I raise my hand and thump him in his chest. "Fuck off with yelling in my ear! You are right next to me."

I stand there sinking in quicksand. If I rise to go after her, does that not mean I care? Does that not prove it? If I truly did not care, I would let him have her. Naomi, with her sweet, warm skin, soft blue eyes and silky blonde hair, her kiss has burned me. Marked me upon my lips and I have to feel her again at all costs. Just to get her out of my system, just to be able to forget. That is what I say to myself.

It has nothing to do with that wanting, desperate look in her eyes. The affection I see there when she smiles at me, the way her sweet smell drifts into my nostrils and fills me with desire. It has nothing to do with her heart pounding against me, nothing to do with her soft lips pulled into a beautiful grin. Nothing to do with that, at all.

"So, should we go after her?" I say keeping my voice as logical and dispassionate as possible. Effy quirks her head sideways at me, Katie stands with her mouth gaping open, Cook looks…well, confused.

"Of course we should," Effy begins. "I promised I would help her. I think you promised her something too, I hope eventually you'll be smart enough to remember it."

_Is Effy chastising me? Is that what is happening here? _She almost seems disappointed in me, which is odd. How is it that Naomi has gotten into everyone's heart, wormed her way into everyone's soul? Effy turns to face us all; suddenly seeming less timid and much more resolute.

"Okay. We're going after her. Cook, contact some of the other clans. See if they have any information on Lycan movements. Katie, assemble the weapons we're going to need." Katie moves swiftly to Effy's side and plants a small kiss upon her cheek. _What was that about?_ When we're finally alone, Effy turns to me and smiles.

"You feel it don't you?" She utters cryptically.

"Feel what?" I sputter.

"You know damn well what." She says quietly. "I can hear you. I can feel you. For the first time in ages Emily, you're almost alive. Damn close to it, anyways. You're going to tell me Naomi has nothing to do with that."

"I, well, she's well fit and all, I just," I begin to stutter almost as I become frustrated by her probing.

"She's fit, that's true. But I know you Emily, I see you. You can't hide from this. It will seek you out. It will wrap itself around you and squeeze your ribcage so hard you think you might die. You'll gasp for air, be terrified and ruined by it's presence but you'll also be saved by it as well."

"What?" I say stupidly.

"Love." She says smiling. "I should know I have burned for over two centuries this way. I cannot have her, so I burn alone. But, oh…how I burn for her. You burn for Naomi and that's okay. The more you struggle, the more it wraps itself tight around you. Just let it be, Emily. Let yourself burn. Feel it. It is wonderful you know? I have never felt more complete in my entire existence. Just feel it, be brave."

_Brave._ How do I even begin to understand this thing Naomi and I share? We share this connection, no more than that, this fire that burns us both down to our core.

"If you can't have something, how can you be so happy about it?" I say to her confused and weary.

"Can I not have it? Or do I just think I can't? Sometimes it's all an illusion, sometimes the barrier is real. Either way, I love her. I love her so and that makes me feel alive. Makes me feel so much, I am bursting with an emotion I thought I didn't have the capacity to feel. I thought I was a monster, Emily. I thought I was darkness incarnate, but I am so much more than anything."

"I don't understand Effy, I'm not you. I can't feel those things."

"Don't you though? Don't you feel them? They warm you up from the inside out when you look at her; you hum like neon in her presence. It's so beautiful, Emily. The fire can burn, the fire will blaze, but it's so beautiful that you're wrapped up inside of it, finally. Let yourself feel it."

I sigh in resignation. She knows things I will never begin to understand. And she is not wrong about me. I do burn. I feel it so much it is burning me from the inside out. I know that I do not burn alone. Because when I looked into Naomi's beautiful blue eyes what I saw staring back at me was fire. Blue flame flickering wildly inside of her, wrapping itself around her tight and she loved every second of it. And that frightened me. She was so brave; it was beautiful and terrifying all at once. _I have to have her, just so I can forget._ Effy looks at me sadly and takes my hand, softly tracing circles in my palm.

"Just feel it," she says softly. "Or it will crush you."

"I don't know if I can." I say simply. Effy's smile is small and somewhat sad. I don't even know how a smile can be both of those things at once. I can't even understand that. Suddenly Katie bursts through the doors and looks at Effy and my joined hands. Her face is puzzled, but she recovers well.

"Cook has news from the Northern Clan. There is Lycan movement in Manchester, possibly Freddie. Word is he took a platinum blonde girl to see 'the Endless.' This can't end well. We should move."

Effy nods in agreement. Katie stares at her for a moment before spinning on her heels and moving out of the door. They shared a look between them I couldn't read or understand. Suddenly, I'm filled with questioning.

"Who do you love, Effy?" I ask her.

"Why I love you all, even Naomi." She says softly.

"I mean who are you 'in love' with." I ask again more firmly, annunciating carefully.

"Your sister," she says smiling. "I can't believe you never noticed."

Love. It is a funny thing. It is strange and wild. Reckless and free, running about screaming with its arms open like a young child. It burns me so deep though and is squeezing me so hard, but I'm not ready yet. _I'm not ready._ I think to myself softly. _I don't want to be in love._

Effy turns to me and smiles sympathetically. She's obviously reading my mind.

"You will never be ready for how this makes you feel. It's not something you can prepare for, like a battle. You will never have the right weapons, never be protected enough from this. If you do not rise and seize this moment of love, you might wait forever. All you can do is feel it, all you can do is burn. Don't make this harder on yourself than it has to be, Emily."

"You love my sister?" I finally sputter.

"Yes," she says almost chuckling. "And I believe I do not 'burn' alone. I think she feels it."

I don't know what to say to this new information. All of it is washing over me, over whelming me. Effy turns to me and smiles again.

"Let's go find, Naomi.


	10. Lover's Day

**A/N: There are a few of my sweet chinchillas out there that aren't reviewing me. It doesn't make me sad, just disappointed. I even fed you tiny apple pieces. Does it all mean nothing? All my petting, all your ear wiggling? Nothing? : ) Work has been hell and my friend's dad just died. So, I need some cheering up. In all seriousness, if you're digging something; review me. **

**Manchester, England (Hidden Caves) – Present Day – (Naomi)**

I have killed hundreds of vampires. Here, in this hollow cavern that stretches downwards into the depths of the Earth. I have been here a long time and the endless have taught me so many things about how to control my condition. Things like, how to possess the strength and ferocity of the wolf, without losing myself inside of the physical manifestation of it. How much time has passed here in this limbo? I cannot say. It has stretched ceaselessly before me in a weary fashion that makes my limbs ache and my heart numb. I have fought my way through the damp, dark, dingy pathways; each new trial more harrowing than the first. I have jumped cavernous spaces through sheer force of will. I have forced apart spaces to small for me and wedged myself between to feel their crushing weight. I have felt every sinew in my arm burn as I swung the blade to decapitate vampire hoards. They do not care who I am, they only know me as their enemy. Their eyes are cold and vacant.

In the darkness they are shadows that move, but I can see them. My blue eyes glow in the dark, I can take in everything they are and now I know exactly how to tear them apart. I am so much more than I was before. But I am an empty vessel. I wish someone would pour themselves into me, so cold and clear, like sweet water. I wish they would fill the spaces inside me that scream in my loneliness, get inside every crevice and soothe my weary soul.

I walk slowly across a small rock bridge. It is thin enough for me to venture across it and I do, carefully tucking one foot after the other; meditating on the agility of the wolf I possess within me. I do not meditate on the savagery, there is a time for that; but not now. I have so much to learn, but now I feel wonderful, beautiful and strange. I feel like I hold universes within me, waiting to explode and then wither away. As I cross the threshold of the end of the rock bridge, one of the endless stands before me. They all look alike to me, it is creepy really, but they have been nothing but kind. Its hollow eyes feel their way across my face and eye me with sympathy.

"Naomi, we believe you are ready to face your greatest battle." He utters into the dark, bats wings softly flutter and their soft screeches carry into my ears from the distance. It must be a long way down from here, a very long way.

I arch my eyebrow and smile. "Oh, I think I'm ready. How long have I been here anyway?"

"The equivalent of one hundred years," he says calmly.

"What?" I scream. It couldn't have possibly been that long. My mind aches and my heart pounds in my chest like a drum. "Why didn't you come and get me? Why did you imprison me here for so long?"

"First," he ushers holding up one hand to illustrate. "We did not imprison you. You have always been free to go. Second, I said the 'equivalent' of one hundred years." He smiles slightly at this and stares back at me, onyx eyes glinting mischievously.

I stare back at him. "I don't understand."

He sighs in response. "Here, there is no linear time. All of time is an illusion that your small finite brains created. There are no minutes, no days, and no years. You could easily be anywhere, if you only wished it. The expanse of time is infinite, a great tapestry that you could travel across, simply by folding it like a map."

"I don't quite get it." I say bewildered and somewhat awed.

"Of course you don't," he says. "You are not capable of such thought. Your brain still believes everything it did when you were mortal, but you have seen so much, done so much. Are you not ready now, to believe?"

"So where is now? I mean, how do I get back to where I was before?" _To Emily_, my mind screams. I want to see her, one last time; before our fates pull us in different directions, forever.

The endless smiles at me pushing through his shocks of spiked black hair, "You possess the power to be in any reality you wish, if you could believe it. You have seen them, the other worlds. They have come to you in visions, places you have never been; yet you yearn for them. People you have never loved, but somehow do. People like, Emily." He says softly.

"How do you know about her?" I say shocked and somewhat scared.

He laughs loudly and expressively. "I can see those worlds too. Worlds where you are a million different things, a million different possibilities, but one thing remains unchanged. You love her. You always love her. Sometimes you are scared and weak; sometimes you are flippant and wild. There are times you love her so strongly, that she runs from you. But no matter how many infinities I see before me with you in them, she is there. She is always there."

"I feel that, I think." I say stupidly touching my chest where my heart lay. He nods.

"You feel it, because you have always known. The ache when you look at her, that tightness in your chest when you are apart. Somewhere within her she knows it too, but she does not have the faith you do, the gentle, blind unswerving faith of a child. She is not like you, but she does feel it. That is not to say, that this is a place and time where you will be together. She is your destiny, but fate often has other plans."

"I thought you were all powerful, can't you make her love me?" I say, then regret almost immediately.

"Is that what you want?" He asks furrowing his brow at me, heavy creases appearing in his smooth white skin.

"No, I mean. No. Of course not, it's just I thought you could do something, if we're meant to be." I say feebly.

"I have no concept of what that means," he says solemnly.

"I don't want you 'to make' her do anything," I say softly. "It's just I know we could be so beautiful together. She needs to spend sometime with me, get closer. Infinitely closer, it would be so wonderful, I just know it. It's killing me inside, to feel this way about someone, about anyone."

"Yes. It kills. It rages and burns you. You are consumed, but do you not feel wonderful?" He says cocking his head sideways slightly and staring at me again.

I smile. "Yes, it does feel pretty wonderful," I say smiling. "I didn't think I would ever feel like this."

"Carry the memory of this with you always. This flame that burns within you, also lights you up from the inside. It will keep you warm on those lonely nights when the barren expanse of eternity calls out to you, beckons you. The memory of this will be with you, it will never really leave you. Loving something this way will be with you, forever. If you clutch it and keep it softly but firmly to you, it will save you."

I nod in agreement and smile somewhat brokenly. Is the memory of this all I get to have? I close my eyes and see infinity stretch out before me, it is howling in the vast expanses far beyond my reach. I see Emily smiling at me, I see her in a secluded wood, damp hair and dark eyes shining. If I can carry my love with me, maybe eternity will not be so unbearable. Maybe I will not become the monster I dread, within me.

"I have to see her." I say without opening my eyes.

"I know," he says. "You can never stay away."

I chuckle to myself. "I suppose I can't. She inspires it in me." My eyes are still closed. I focus then. Focus on the sound of Bristol traffic. Focus on the smell of its ancient air thick with the scent of damp fall leaves, the rain pattering upon the rooftops. I feel like I am made of light. I feel my stomach lurch as I almost feel myself moving. Suddenly, I open my eyes. England, Bristol to be exact. I am standing in the street, passers by do not regard me at all. Can they see me? The Endless stands with me too, smiling warmly.

"You have learned so much, Naomi." He says softly.

"They can't see us yet? Will anyone be able to?" I ask somewhat worried.

"Yes, all you have to do is wish it. You can draw out each moment, amplify it to its extreme, and push it to its farthest limits. You do not yet grasp the power you possess."

"I would give it all up, you know?" I say simply.

"For her heart," he says eyeing me solemnly.

"Yes." I say smiling sadly.

"That is strange to me. You have all the power of infinity and time within your grasp and you would give it up – to be in love, with her. The pain you feel. The sorrows you would share, would you not care or want to be saved that sadness."

"You've seen me. Millions of times, make that choice. How do you think I would respond now?" I say simply.

"You always choose to take the risk with her. Is she worth it?" He asks me bluntly. "I do not understand mankind's capacity to love. I have no sense of it. Explain it to me."

"She is worth it," I say smiling broadly. "In all the realities I've been given glimpse of, she's everything. She's wonderful. I can't hope to explain love to you, hell I can barely explain my feelings about her to you. I've just always known she was out there, you know? I was always comforted at the end of every broken relationship, because I just knew that somewhere she hovered in the distance, hidden from me, but waiting. I didn't know what she looked like until that night when she saved me. I didn't even realize it right then, but later. Oh, how I felt it. I want to find her, to see her. Fuck. I don't even know what I'd say. _'Oh, hi. We're destined to be together by the way. Love me?'_ That would be right effective I imagine." I babble almost uncontrollably.

"Naomi. I have existed for thousands of your years. I have always known the mysteries of the universe, but I cannot begin to understand your love for this girl. I suppose I do not have to. Only you do. It will guide you and you will do the right thing, if that means loving her, or walking away."

His words punch me in my chest, but I nod.

"Goodbye for now, Naomi. If you need my guidance, seek me out. You will know the way."

And with that, he was gone. Like some shit out of a movie, a ray of light, a puff of smoke. Either way, the street I walk upon tonight is on fire with my hope. I will seek her out, I will be brave. I will be everything I am and hope that it is enough. I walk purposefully down the street and as my mind is racing, I feel my feet beginning to pick up speed. I'm sprinting down the street, I'm not far now. _I'm not far now._

I feel myself collide with something hard as I flip myself in an agile fashion into the air and land on my feet. This swearing, cursing bundle of nerves on the pavement picks itself up and begins to swear at me.

"Fucking Christ, watch where you are going! Stupid cow!"

My eyes glow in the darkness. The headlights from a passing car illuminate us both in their glow and their fire burns around me as the face of my swearing friend is illuminated as well.

"Hello again, Katie." I breathe somewhat quietly.

"Naomi?" She questions. "Freddie had you. What happened? Did you see the endless?"

How do I begin to explain universal mysteries to the fashion centered Fitch twin? It grasps me as oddly funny and I begin to laugh. Katie eyes me suspiciously before she is joined by Cook and Effy obviously smelling a Lycan in the vicinity. Me. My laughter dies in my throat when I see the one person that all my infinite lifetimes had been about, standing before me. She wears a long dark velvet coat, with an ocean blue dress that comes just above her knees; her legs are so deliciously long for someone so impossibly short. I smile at her warmly. Her hair is long and dark, shining even in the faint moonlight. The full moon's light. All of them stare at me openly, filled with questioning. But I look only at her. Her deep brown eyes feel their way almost of their own volition, across my face. I smirk then, almost triumphantly. Her lips are dark red and pull themselves into a small grin. It is something, I think to myself.

"It's a full moon out." I say finally to all of them.

"You aren't a werewolf." Effy says looking at me solemnly.

"I am still. But now I am the one in control, not the monster." I say simply. "I rule it, it doesn't rule me."

"How did you do it?" Cook asks me somewhat sadly.

"I wish I could explain it to you," I say excitedly. "I've learned so much. I've been gone for over a century to learn these things, but for you no time has passed. It all sounds crazy, really. But I'm stronger, I can help you."

"We've done alright without you." Emily says unflinchingly.

"Have you then?" I say staring into her eyes. I see her flinch at my gaze and I fight every urge within me not to kiss her senseless.

"Haven't we, Katie?" She asks, almost trying to pry out her sister's agreement from her mouth.

"Well, it has been a bit shit." She admits honestly. "Bunch of bollocky fucking wank shite, if you ask me." She says shrugging.

I laugh softly and Emily looks annoyed.

Effy smiles and grasps Katie's hand with a smile on her face, but Katie pulls it away slowly leaving Effy looking towards her with a hurt and puzzled expression.

"Naomikins," Cook bellows. "How about some celebratory pints on the Cookie Monster?"

"I will say yes, only on the exception that you're talking about beer and not about blood." I say pointing teasingly at Cook.

"You can trust me blondie," he says smiling and chuckling softly.

"Alright then," I say. "Let's go somewhere safe and talk over a few pints."

We talk in an abandoned building over stolen beer and I'm reminded fondly of my misspent youth. Hanging out in empty spaces with misfits who did not belong, doing things that did not matter. All of us are laughing and drinking, generally enjoying ourselves except for Emily. She sits on a bench eyeing us from a distance, scowling at me from beneath her splendid brown tresses. With every passing second I feel her anger at me growing. Finally she picks up a discarded piece of brick and tosses it at my head. I duck just in time; luckily the alcohol had not dulled my reflexes.

"What is your fucking problem, Emily?" I shout.

"You. You're my fucking problem, Naomi! You waltz in here and make my 'family' feel at ease, but we don't know you! They fucking love you, you know? You've barely spent anytime with them and they want you to hang a-god-damn-round! You could be a Lycan spy for all we know!"

"Emily, if I wanted to kill you. You'd be dead by now," I say calmly. "I think you know I don't want that."

"I don't fucking know anything!" She says storming out of the building into the night. I hear the rolling of thunder as it softly begins to rain.

I stare helplessly at Effy, Katie, and Cook and all three of them stare back at me sympathetically. "Go after her," Effy says simply.

I move swiftly through the door of the ruined factory into an open field where I find Emily with her head tilted skyward, letting the soft droplets hit her porcelain skin. The water is beading up upon her velvet coat and shines like diamonds in the darkness.

"Emily." I say cautiously.

"What do you want from me?" She says sadly. "I can't give you anything. I don't have it within me, I promise you."

"Want?" I say lost deep in thought as Emily turns slowly around to face me. The rain softly hits my skin. My aching bones are desperate to be covered with it.

"Yes, want." She says lower this time.

"You," I say stupidly. "Just, you."

"Is that all?" she says suspiciously but teasingly too.

"Yes, well no," I say pausing to think for a moment. Emily pushes her elegant lips into a tiny pout.

"Love me." I say aloud. I see the shock play across her face at my honesty. I say this so there is no mistaking my intention. I do not want just the physical part of her. I want the heart and the aching desperate soul of her. Every part that she fears and dreads, every thought locked inside of her, the sheer music of her and the intensity of her life; burning with me. But I have seen it all, before me. I have seen who she is and I am not afraid.

Suddenly she is upon me. Our lips meet as the rain falls hard, like kisses on my skin. I was afraid it would pass me by and leave me wanting. I was afraid she would pass me by and leave me forever wanting. Her mouth feels mine deliciously slowly, but ferociously as well. She sucks on my bottom lip sending a shiver rippling through me. That small gesture turns me on more than I have ever been turned on in my life. I growl as I pull her further into me. The rain begins to soak us through, but I can not feel anything but this. The intensity of our kiss makes my knees tremble. My heart slams up against my rib cage as we illuminate the darkness with our fire.

We are fully clothed, but the arousal I feel nearly crushes me with its weight. I feel like I am crammed in too small a space again, the rock walls pushing in on me. Her tongue has found my mouth now and moves within it and her lips glide against me in a delicious fashion. I am panting between our kisses, I feel like I am drowning in dark thick water. I need to break the surface. I take only gasping breaths.

I move my hands up to caress her body, enjoying full access. I move them to her beautiful breasts. I palm them, rubbing them through the fabric of her dress as I move to suck on her pulse point. I hear her softly moan, I feel the muscles clench between my legs. A dull throbbing sensation grows there. I am practically aching for her. Her hands roam over me, I gasp at every touch. It feels electric, pulsing through me. _God, if kissing her feels like this. Fucking her just might kill me. _I banish my ridiculous thoughts, but _'what a way to die' _I tell myself.

Emily slowly pushes back from me, panting. I release her with reluctance, not wanting to push her any further than she is ready for. She looks at me with those dark brown eyes, almost pulling me into them. There is such depth inside them. I smile at her warmly. Everything she has fought to deny - stares her in the face, bright eyes shining.

The sound of a low growl pierces my ears. I grab Emily by the arm and raise my senses to the sound of guttural noises coming from the nearby tree line. If I had only been paying attention, I would have noticed sooner. But when a woman like Emily has her elegant lips pressed to yours, you certainly cannot be blamed for your mistakes. Unless of course, it has the misfortune of getting one of you killed.


	11. Hours

**A/N: Thanks, gentle readers. I've got a faithful few of you clinging to your seats. :D I appreciate all the kind words. I'm glad even though it is a romanti-pervy fan fic, that at least my words reach you across the distance and give you something deeper and perhaps something real to hold on to. Freddie's chapter is a little dark and depressing, but I wanted to get inside his head as the 'big bad' so to speak and flesh out his character. Enjoy. Thanks Hyperfitched, Layrelei, lumagoo, (), AssassinsLover and anyone else I may have missed for your kind and comforting words. :) **

**Bristol, England – Present Day – (Freddie)**

The humming beneath my skin makes my body feel alive. The sound of my blood rushing through me is like the ocean waves, crashing in my ears. My skin stretches across my lithe and agile frame and the wolf in me is alive. I feel my feet dig into the soft, damp, earth. I hear the sound of shouting, thunder, sense passion and fervor; it calls to me like the siren's song. I stare at them. Watch them kiss. Naomi and Emily, they share something that I find difficult to define and even more difficult to watch. She is not a wolf and under this full moon, it tears at me, pulls at my heart and fills me with jealousy.

In many lifetimes I have waited and watched myself lose everything I ever loved. It hurts more than I could have imagined. It makes me angry and it has made me bitter. I even tried to care about a vampire once, Katherine or Katie, if you will. But we were merely toying with one another, tossing each other about like mere playthings. She was not in love with me, nor was I with her. When our war began, it didn't surprise me that I wanted to make her suffer the most, she who burned me, both mentally and physically as well.

The last time we spoke as lovers, she took the red hot iron burning in the fireplace and stuck it to my chest, ironically above the space where my heart lay. It did not pierce the flesh, but merely let it twist and burn beneath it, a mirror for my heart and for my soul. I carry that reminder of her with me now, upon my chest. Sometimes I lay my hand across it and feel the blood rush beneath it and I let myself become swallowed by rage. I will make her pay.

I shift my body through the branches and weeds. I glance at the form beside me, silent but ever present. The wolf near me, dark hair, dark eyes, is Karen my sister. We walk in perfect cadence with one another. She knows I am not here for Emily. I would however, like the chance to pay Katherine back for the scars upon my forearms, now covered by my dense, thick fur. I growl low in my throat, perhaps too loudly. Naomi springs to life with a start, her lips no longer attached to the small girl beside her. She is listening for me now. Waiting to spring to life, to protect the woman she loves. I would find it sweet, if I did not find it disgusting. I cannot stomach the idea of love. I no longer believe it possible. It is a fanciful notion that gives young children, dreams. And young men, false hope. But it is so worthless to me. So much flotsam that I have discarded long ago, among the ruins of another life. Naomi would do well to do the same. One can be happy with a woman, as long as they do not love her. If you love her, she will make you pay for it - for the rest of your life.

I think of my heart, my useless heart. How it had sputtered and whined in my chest at the sight of any pretty girl when I was alive. How it had plunked along, dull and non-rhythmic, as I sat prostrate, captivated by their beauty. How I had opened my mouth to speak and words had catapulted from me, powered by my useless heart. They travelled awkwardly across the pretty girl's faces, in a slow, unending succession. They streamed slowly down their luscious bodies as they tumbled their way, messily into the street or onto the floor; to be sucked into drain pipes or somewhere mildewing in their floor boards. Utterly useless, was my heart. I was glad now, to be unencumbered by it.

I maneuver myself to take in the rest of the building, careful not to alert Naomi to my presence. Karen I signal to pause, keeping her eyes trained on Emily and Naomi. It is amazing the gestures and eye signals we use as wolves, to protect our existence. One defense of many, I know 'the endless' did not teach her. As I move to the other side of the building I see "Effy" the Oracle of the Vampire clan, leaning casually against the wall, effortlessly smoking a cigarette. If one were not observant, you could imagine she were a normal girl. But she is not, the things she sees and knows frighten many and I am surprised she survived as long as she did when she was human. The terrors of her own mind, wrapped in such a small and beauteous frame, I would feel sorry for her; were I capable of such emotions. In some small corner of reality, perhaps I could even love that face. Those azure eyes and soft chestnut tresses, she was beauteous, really. But she is mad and I am broken and this is not a time where those things are possible.

I move closer to Effy in silence, taking in her casual slumping frame, delicate hands and wrists that will taste of sorrow and eternity as I sink my teeth deep within them. I hear a loud bang as I see the one person I want to make pay, exit the rundown warehouse; the door slamming hollowly against the fading brick wall. Katie. She approaches Effy strutting like a pure vixen, she will never change. It is remarkable that most people have grasped the concept of "personal growth," but dear Katie seems to run from that. I would chuckle were it appropriate.

She moves to Effy and stands in close proximity. Too close perhaps.

"What's all this about, you and my sister?" She spits. _Oh, this just got interesting._

"What?" Effy gasps. "No, Katherine. What are you talking about?"

"I saw you. Holding her hand, touching her softly, what were you doing Effy?" She questions a little too concerned for Emily's mere protection.

"What you saw, was not what you thought it was. I don't understand why you're mad at me, Katherine." Effy says moving to touch Katie's arm lightly, almost lovingly. _How odd._

"Mad at you?" Katie almost seems to think now, think about how it looks. How she is feeling. How perhaps, someone else might be feeling. This bothers me.

"Yes. Why does the thought of Emily and I, bother you?" Effy questions drawing out the sentence and leaving it hanging there, like a loaded gun pointed at Katie's heart.

Katie's nose wrinkles upwards and her eyebrows knit as if she is lost in thought. "I just, I wanted to know okay?"

"Okay," Effy breathes. "But why does it bother you?" I feel the hammer on the gun pull back, I feel Effy squeezing the trigger of it lightly. I feel my own chest tighten.

"Because, because I think…I mean…I love you." Katie finally says. My eyes widen exponentially. My heart pounds angrily in my aching chest. Effy's eyes are a mirror of my own, wide and open. But hers are filled with hope and mine are filled with despair.

"You love me?" Effy says slowly. "How do you love me?"

"How?" Katie draws this word out but I feel the dull ache within me as I anticipate with dread the words to fall from her small, tangled lips. "I mean, I'm 'in love' with you, Effy. Fuck sake. Do you have to make me say it?"

Effy smiles knowingly and it is so big and so grand a smile that I feel the jealousy rise within me. _"Love. What is it good for?" _Someone once said. _Absolutely nothing._

"Yes, I needed to hear you say it, otherwise it wouldn't seem real. I've burned for you so many nights, Katherine. I desperately had to hear you say it." Effy says moving forward to Katie and clutching the sides of her face softly with each hand. The rain falls harder now, but they are unaffected, shielded by the eves of the warehouse rooftop. Their faces become illuminated by a flash of lightning. I see both of their bodies trembling in anticipation. Effy moves to Katie's lips and whispers, "Two hundred fucking years. Could you have made me wait any longer?" Before capturing Katie's soft lips between her own. Katie clutches at her pulling her impossibly closer, pulling Effy's left leg around her as they embrace.

I stand being pelted by annoying drops, while Effy makes out with my ex-girlfriend. I would laugh vigorously at the circumstances, were it possible. I growl low in my throat again, sinews and muscles burning. I lunge forward towards them, howling desperately in my rage. They break apart leaping backwards from one another and I focus on Katie's small form. I begin to chase her now, through the wet grass of the field, legs thundering beneath me. I stretch my muscles tight across my frame and they burn inside of me. Burn at the chance to make her feel the emptiness I feel within me.

I am stunned by a sudden gunshot. I sense bullets whizzing past me. They are most likely liquid silver projectiles. I begin to run a dodge pattern. You cannot shoot what you cannot hit. Katie moves swiftly for a girl with legs so small. I am startled by Effy's handgun being pointed past her, to me. But a handgun was not what I had heard. I bolt into the wooded area and make shapes to stay hidden. I hear the voice of a man pierce the darkness.

"Miss, are you okay?" His dull blue eyes scan Katie's stunned face. He is tall, probably in his forties, definitely human. Oddly creepy, if you ask me; but I nearly got killed – so that is probably tainting my perception of him. Another man steps out into the clearing. Pock marked and gangly with curly hair, he is awkward and bizarre.

"Yes, are you okay? There was a high statistical probability you could have been killed. Most encounters with a lycan end in death, with a small amount ending in decapitation. Some end in dismemberment; although that is a much smaller percentage."

"J.J.!" The other man offers. "Don't scare these poor ladies. I'm Foster, John Foster and this is my apprentice, J.J. We hunt supernatural creatures and kill them. Doing are part to rid the earth of these vile creatures. Don't be frightened my lovelies." He says disgustingly.

Katie and Effy stare at them blankly before feebly offering a response. "Thanks. I guess."

"You're welcome ladies," Foster says trying desperately to sound valiant. _What a tool._ "We are your humble servants. What are your names?"

"Katie. My name's Katie." She offers bluntly unimpressed with this idiot, he cannot even tell they are vampires. How smart can he be?

"Elizabeth." Effy says dull and lifelessly.

"Elizabeth," Foster repeats slowly smiling at her. She scrunches up her nose at him in disgust.

"Not even 'close' to interested." Effy bluntly states. I see this guy flinch, hard. I would have laughed if I could have. _I do like this girl._

"Also," Katie says stepping in front of Effy protectively. "We're fucking vampires moron, get a clue." Then she and Effy move so fast they quickly disappear from Foster's sight. Leaving him standing with his mouth agape, staring at the empty space they left behind. J.J. for his part, laughs softly. Foster makes a strange clucking noise with his mouth and turns on his heel, moving back into another part of the tree lined forest. They have made a fool of him, as they had once; made a fool of me. At least for him, it was quick. Instead of drawn out suffering and humiliations. The degradation wearing him down, chipping away at his edges like a rock to a piece of flint.

Love. It has always taunted me. And because of that, every single fiber within me moves with the rhythm of hate. I pace softly. I will bring my war upon their heads. Bring their kingdom of conceit crashing down upon them. But first, there is the matter of Naomi to attend to. Our wayward little friend will have to learn a painful lesson about abandoning your elders. I burn to know the secrets the endless taught her, her mortal form with the abilities of the wolf. I will know these things. It is selfish to keep secrets, when so many may benefit from their exposure.

I move to watch Emily and Naomi again. Karen nods to me. My fur bristles upon my back. I watch them go together, turning their backs upon me. I could attack them now, perhaps. But instead I watch their retreating forms shrink upon the horizon and think that every condemned man; must have a last meal, so to speak. I pull my face into a snarl that half-resembles a grin.

**Sorry that this chapter is short. Work is busy, insane, in fact. I hope Foster's appearance didn't unsettle anyone. **


	12. Staring at the Sun

**A/N: Naomi's POV again, she is the main character after all. Also, I agree with one of my reviewers. Why doesn't this story have more feedback? I don't know. I think it's rather beautiful if you ask me, but I am terrible sometimes at being humble. :) It's been made a favorite by quite a few people and been added to update list by loads – but so few reviews. *sigh* I still love you all for reading. You are the wind beneath my wings. So this is it, the moment we've all been waiting for…P.S. This chapter and possible others - ****Not Safe for Work/Public Places/Etc****…it's a bit filthier than I intended. Not that any of you will complain. I only hope it's as delightful to read as it was to write. *smokes cigarette in bed* (and I don't smoke.)**

**Bristol, England – Present Day – (Naomi)**

We end up here. Emily and I are feverish and wild, barely containing our hunger for one another. The brick structure that was once my prison now becomes my den of passion. Emily pushes me into her room wordlessly and I cannot say that I complain. I have been waiting for her to acknowledge this spark between us, this raging fire for what seems like ages. I have spent one hundred years away from her physically, but she has never been far from my thoughts. I look into her chestnut orbs and now I see she can barely contain it. Whatever she has been holding back has been set loose. It runs itself ragged over me. She kisses me furiously and I do not stop her. I enjoy the feel of her tongue forcing its way into my mouth as she pulls on my bottom lip between kisses. I enjoy her hands wandering over my body and the exquisite sensations of pleasure she leaves in their wake. I am trembling from her touch. I pull back for a moment to look at her properly, in silence.

I have never realized how perfect I find the female form, until this moment. Every curve, suspended from her jaw, to her neck, to her shoulders, her pert breasts, down her back, the curve of her buttocks, around to her legs and up her thighs, to the beauty contained between them. I gulp hard. She is not even undressed and I feel the anxiety rise within me. What if I have built this in my head, constructed a goddess that does not exist? I look at her again, beautiful pale skin, deep brown eyes, elegant lips, small but elegant frame. How could I ever be disappointed in what I see before me? She is beauteous but more than that, magnificent. Everything about her is a reflection of that beauty. This will be so wonderful it just might kill me. I bite down on my lip, hard. I want so many things from this moment. To take in her plump soft lips, her dark doe eyes and her strong yet feminine jaw line. I want to melt slowly beneath her gaze. I smile softly at her and lean forward to lick her neck, sucking upon her pulse point. She lets out a small moan and I feel the ache between my legs return with full force.

She moans into my mouth as I kiss her and I feel my heart pounding in my chest. I push my hands through her dark hair and grip at her tightly, afraid that she is an illusion. Afraid that she may disappear and I would be here left wanting, forever. Emily pulls at me, pulls me closer to her. Wrapping her slender arms around me in a possessive fashion, I adore it so. Only in this moment do I feel reborn.

It is silly you say to put so much on the shoulders of one woman. To ask for so much from a simple kiss, to need so much from making love to her or from fucking her. Is it really, though? Should I not want everything from her? Should I not expect worlds to explode and die, only to rise again at her touch? Should I not expect the very foundation of my reality to be shaken by her kiss and my very soul howl with delight at her embrace? Because, it does, that is how I know. That is how I have always known. I could run from it, I could hide, but in all my life no one will ever touch me like this again. It would pain me, but I could live. My heart would beat, but it would never make music the way it does with her. I desperately hope that she feels the same. Because nothing is worse than feeling this way about someone and their feelings are not a mirror for your own. I know that to describe this moment is to dull it, like dragging a knife along the pavement. Sparks will fly, heat will be transferred, but the essence is dulled. It will never be describable in words. I can only feel it and be brave. Feel the love that guided us both here and hope it will not burn us with its fire.

Emily does not hesitate any longer. Pushing me backwards, lifting me up into her arms. I wrap my legs around her waist and push my center against her. I hear her groan against my neck. My fucking heart slams against my ribcage as she captures my lips once again. Emily forcefully pushes us onto her bed. The sheets are soft and supple beneath my grasping fingers. She pulls back from me and I grunt my disapproval, pulling my lips into a pout. Emily silently wags her finger before me and smiles. She slowly removes her coat from her shoulders, tossing it behind her. I swallow hard. I know where this is going.

Soon, she pushes her velvet dress down her shoulders. Pushing it over her bra-clad breasts and her toned stomach, I begin to struggle for breath. As she slides it down over her hips, my breath hitches in my throat as I stare in a completely perverted fashion at her underwear. They are sheer and I can make out the gorgeous delight awaiting me, beneath them. I suck in one gasping breath and then only take shallow ones. This is torture, I push forward with a start and Emily backs up, wagging her finger at me again. Well, two can play at this game. I kneel on the bed and begin by removing my shirt slowly, Emily's eyes grow wide.

I play with my platinum blonde hair nervously and stare in her eyes. She looks hungry for me, that much I can tell. I smirk in silent victory. I remove my skinny jeans as sexily as possible. Emily moves forward but I push up my hand in silent protest. Soon, I am clad only in my underwear. Thank god, I only buy sexy lingerie. You honestly never know when the opportunity will present itself. I become self-conscious once again. What if I am not what she expected? How will I measure up to centuries of her other lovers? As I stare at her with her brown eyes dilated and her chest heaving, I think I affect her. I think she is aroused by looking at me. It is enough to spur me on.

"Naomi," she breathes in almost a whisper.

I remain kneeling on the bed as I move my hands back deliciously slow, to remove my bra. I unhook it, holding on to the front of it. Watching Emily's eyes become transfixed on my heaving bosom, she licks her lips in anticipation. I tremble awaiting the inevitable. I want her bad like a natural disaster. Rocking me like an earthquake, until the very foundation of my soul begins to crumble. I slide it down torturously as I unveil my firm, plump breasts. I hear her softly gasp. My nipples become erect from her mere presence. Just being under her sultry gaze is making my knickers flood with my excitement. We are beautiful here in the darkness and everything we will do is sacred and secret. I have spent too many nights imagining this moment, kissing her, touching her so wonderfully and her, wanting me to. _Oh, the things I will do to her and let her do to me. _

I slowly hook my fingers under the edges of the waistband of my knickers. I begin to push them down, gracefully moving to lie down upon my back, raised up on my elbows. I am naked before her. I spread my legs and smile up at her seductively. "Tell me you don't feel this, Emily." I say sultry and defiant.

Her small graceful form moves to the bed, forcefully moving on top of me. Pinning my arms above my head, she claims my lips as she forces her body down onto mine. "Fuck." She breathes.

"Too much clothing," I gasp between our kisses. I fight my hands free and unclasp her bra pushing it off of her, tossing it somewhere in the room beyond my vision. Her breasts are beautiful, small and perfectly pert. I take one of her breasts in my palm, grazing it with my fingertips and then capture her swollen nipple in my hot mouth. She pushes her heated center down upon my thigh and I moan with delight. She is spontaneous perfection, she is a gleaming animal painted in sweat and ecstasy. I suck harder, moving to her other breast. "Ffffffff." Is all she can manage. I feel her wetness coating my thigh and if I do not feel her inside me soon, I will surely die. My own wetness flows from my heated center. Emily instinctively moves her hand between my legs and gasps. "Oh, Naoms." She breathes.

She just shortened my name in the most adorable way, in our sexiest moment by far. I have to say, I quite like it.

"Ems," I say being less than subtle. "For god's sake, please fuck me."

She stares at me for a moment and then crashes her lips into mine. It is frantic and imperfect, but I would not have it any other way. She runs her fingers through my wetness and gathers moisture, gently rubbing my clit several times until my back is arching off the bed. As I am just beginning to remember how to breathe, she enters me with two fingers suddenly. "Oh, fuck!" I shout.

She smirks as she moves to suck my neck, never ceasing her rhythm inside me. "God, you feel amazing." She breathes in awe. She moves to suck my erect nipples and I nearly fucking die right there. The atoms within me are dancing in a perfect symphony. Humming beneath my flesh and screaming throughout my blood. My heart is slamming so hard against my ribcage I fear it might actually burst. She smells softly of apples and vanilla, it is bizarrely intoxicating. I breathe in her scent as she moves within me. Her mouth captures my own and I moan into it repeatedly. I want her to know how excited she makes me.

I move my hand between her legs and push my fingers past the now, very damp cotton barrier of her knickers. Her wetness coats my fingers. "Oh, Emily," I moan in ecstasy. It is so beautiful to be here with her, in this way. Never before this night, had I glimpsed true beauty. Never had I laid eyes upon it and had it possess my soul completely. This moment would be burned in my brain until the end of all the ages. Her cheeks are flushed and round, her eyes dark and beauteous, her lips plump and swollen from our kisses, her wonderful bosom heaving. I push my fingers into her and she stammers silently, saying something almost beyond my hearing. I move slowly at first then picking up a steady rhythm from my difficult position. She moves her hips in rhythm with my hand, pushing herself downwards onto it. I bite my lip so hard I almost draw blood. She is spontaneous perfection. I watch the muscles in her jaw tighten as she gives her pleasure a home, I watch her breasts heaving, nipples erect with her arousal. I thought her a vision so beautiful that she could not exist in real life. But here she is and I am moving inside her and it is so fucking amazing I want to cry. _Do not cry, Campbell. Jesus._

This, no one told me it would be like this, to be in love. It hurts so much to have what I want, that I might just scream into the night like a maniac. My heart is swelling painfully and tears spring to my eyes. It is both a complete pleasure and an excruciating pain. If I can not have this, forever; the memory will torment me with its magnificence all my life. Everything seems to move in slow motion, as we work each other into a spectacular frenzy. Her body writhes above me, glistening with sweat. Soft moonlight filters in through hastily spray painted windows, basking her pale skin in an unearthly blue glow. I swear to god, nothing compares to this moment. I could exist for eons and never find its equal.

I have to remind myself to breathe as my eyes are filled with unshed tears and Emily moves within me. She is driving me towards a splendid climax. I can feel it building inside, I arch my back with every thrust feeling my hair becoming more and more tangled against the pillow. "Emily, god. Yes. Harder." I yell loudly as she begins to increase the speed and strength of her thrusts. I match her, thrust for thrust. We both rise to meet in a passionate and lustful kiss. The muscles in her delicate arms are flexing and pulling beneath her skin, covered in sweat and moonlit glow.

"You are so fucking beautiful." I hear her whisper. A single trail of tears escapes my eyelids before I can stop it. It makes me feel ridiculous, but she only kisses me harder for it. "Just, beautiful." She whispers in my ear.

I feel my body surrendering to her completely. I feel my body grow weightless. I know she is approaching her climax with me, step for step, thrust for thrust. "Emily, I love you." I say before I can stop myself, I feel my body begin to spasm with the earth shattering sensations of my orgasm. Emily kisses me hard and I feel her body respond in kind. I feel her wetness saturate my hand and I orgasm for a second time. I lay there beneath her, gasping for air in the deafening silence. I wonder quietly as she holds me saying nothing, if anything has really changed between us.

We surrendered to our passion, but what does that really mean? Do we go on from here, together? I had only thought enough to want her, not the aftermath of my decision. I silently curse myself for not being more conversationally motivated. But honestly, knowing that she wanted me too was enough to erase any doubt or rational thought from my brain. I wrapped my arms around her tightly, kissing her dark brown hair. "I do love you," I say again into the silence. "No matter what," I feel her tense above me slightly.

"I can wait for you to be okay with love again," I say softly. "I've only got forever. If that's how long it takes, I'll be extremely sexually frustrated, but I'll wait for you, Emily."

I feel her chuckle softly as she clings to me, sliding down beside me. She still says nothing, maneuvering her head against my shoulder, nestling into the crook of my arm.

Finally I hear her husky voice ring out in the darkness. "Can't we stay like this for a bit?"

"Yeah, we can," I say stroking her hair gently. "Just for a bit."

**Okay. If you enjoyed this chapter. Please review me. Thanks for reading. Sorry I'm such a shameless pervert. That's a good thing right?**


	13. Dreams

**A/N: Thanks to all for reviewing. To those who haven't don't be shy, I wuv you? And thanks to "darthcaiter" for her shout out in her recent fic "The Guide to Fitching Evil." I appreciate it. I wave my delicate kitten paws excitedly in your direction. I am sorry my updates aren't as frequent as I'd like. Work is excessive and I am tired most days. I will do my very best for you all…I promise. Don't give up on this story, god knows I won't. I know you're lonely…. be brave.**

**Bristol, England – Present Day – (Emily)**

_She loves me._

The words had hit me full force in my chest, I may have shown the panic in my delicate brown eyes. I may have let it drift across them for the briefest of seconds. Yet I banished it to the furthest corners of my mind and let myself indulge in the feeling of her soft skin, her delicious moans and luscious body. I let myself grow wild and come undone in her arms. Now I sit naked curled up in my favorite chair. Tattered velvet, rolled arms, regal high back; my legs pulled up to my chest, arms clasped in front of my knees for protection, but protection from what? _I am afraid of love._ As silly as it seems, that kind of release frightens me, to be so unguarded scares me with such force that it knocks the breath from my lungs. She was magnificent. I have never made love to a woman like that before, so unguarded, so fearless. She tore down walls that I never knew existed. Strangely enough, I feel as if it has all happened before and will inevitably happen again. That somewhere I seek her out, every time and find her waiting.

She always has that longing look in her eyes and it tugs my heart on its chain and I would do anything for her, although she does not know it. I had embraced her in the silence, felt her breathing. Then, she said it again. _She loves me._ God, I could not help the idiotic grin that spread across my face as I hid; my body draped delicately across hers. How she makes me feel alive. She pulls out the evil within me, drawing it out like a poison until there is nothing left but me, Emily; a girl who has been lost much longer than she has been found.

I push myself out of the chair and move nearer to her to watch her sleep. Her beautiful long frame spread out across my bed. Possessing it with her presence, in very much the way she possesses me. Wrapped around it, clutching it, desperately holding on to it, like at any moment it might slip from her clutching hands like sand through her fingers. I think that she must have hung onto life this way, holding it too tightly, fiercely, brave, yet afraid. Somehow, I picture her running, fear in her heart and loneliness in her eyes. Pulling away from me in the stillness of the sheltered woods, _I know you Naomi. You're lonely. You want someone to want you. And I do want you._ I realize that I must be the brave one though. I must want her back.

It is all so complicated. I clutch my head letting my exasperation play across my features. I move to push my hand through Naomi's soft blonde tresses. I play with them gently, sitting softly beside her on the bed. I hear her sigh.

"Just say that you love me," I hear her utter as she faces away from me. I physically jump. She is awake and I'm caught out, naked, feeling through her hair. _How bizarre, Emily._

Naomi rolls over to face me in the moonlight. Her eyes take in my body and she drinks it in. She is less than subtle and it makes me feel flushed and wanted. In my entire existence I have never had someone really look at me like that. It is like she's seeing into me, peering into the darkest depths and seeing my wounded soul. She reaches forward and pulls me onto her. She wraps her long arms around me. My breasts are flush with hers and I can feel her hot breath on my face as she stares at me. "Why can't you just admit it?" She says playfully.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I say playfully back. I smirk at the feel of her heartbeat speeding up because of our close proximity.

"Such a liar," she breathes. Her ice blue eyes stare into mine making me feel completely naked beneath her gaze – in more ways than one. Then she bites her lip in such a ridiculously sexy way, I stare at it longingly. I lean in closer to her. She flips us over until I am pinned beneath her gorgeous, pale naked form. I am panting heavily now, in anticipation of her lips upon mine. She leans forward and moves herself so close to my face her blonde hair tickles my cheeks. "Say it."

"Never," I whisper cheekily. She pins my arms above my head and smirks at me. Her smile falters and fades.

"Never?" she says softly but also gently and so innocently it almost breaks my heart.

"Never," she says again in almost a whisper, more slowly with almost a hint of finality.

Then she crashes her lips into mine, her tongue sliding against my lower lip and I immediately allow it inside. I feel it wrestling with mine, trying to win something, to possess it. It is forceful and less gentle than before. Her grip becomes fierce and still pins my arms above me. Her tongue is sliding in my mouth and I moan instinctively at the growing fire burning, swelling and raging inside me.

"Naomi," I gasp as she moves to my neck sucking on my pulse point. Moving one of her hands to my breast to pull and tease my nipple piercing. I gasp. "Fuck!" Electricity surges through my veins, lighting me up from the inside. I push my hips up into Naomi as she hungrily sucks upon my neck. If I did not know better from the delicious pain shooting through me, I would have sworn she was a vampire. "Naomi," I moan again as my frustration at not being able to touch her builds. I try to pull my hands free from her grasp, but she only grips me tighter.

"No," I hear her almost groan. She grinds her hips down onto me and her wetness makes her slide upon my heated skin.

"Fucking hell," I gasp.

She has bound my hands above me and I have let her. I have always been bound to her. And now I lay physically helpless before her, as helpless as my heart has always been in her presence. I am naked in everyway possible, scared, and in-love. It is terrifying. Her actions are desperate. I want to comfort her and tell her that this is not necessary. That her that I feel it, I always have pulling and tearing at me. Tell her that my long dead heart belongs to no one, but her. She does not give me the chance to breathe, let alone speak as she attacks my breasts with her mouth. She tugs at my piercings gently between the frantic movements of her tongue and lips at my swollen nipples. "Fuck me," I growl in my husky tones.

"No, not yet," she breathes.

"This is torture," I pant at her my voice breaking slightly. She stops then to look at me, panting wildly. My chest is heaving, sweat beading on my skin, my dark eyes shining, dark hair clinging to my neck and shoulders in places. She purses her lips and opens her mouth to speak but it comes out as a strangled whisper.

"No, you are fucking beautiful," she breathes. "And it is torture. It is all I can do not to ravish you where you stand, every time I see you."

She continues her assault on my body. Attacking my neck and sucking on it hard. I groan in pleasure and agony, the ache between my legs throbbing and threatening to kill me. I buck my hips upwards into her. She continues licking and sucking my body, driving me into a splendid frenzy. She maneuvers her beautiful breasts above my mouth and I crane my neck as far as I can to capture as swollen nipple between my lips. I hear Naomi groan in ecstasy. I groan in response. She pulls her chest away from my wanton mouth. I growl in disapproval.

"Now you're just being cruel," I gasp out.

She smirks as she drags her hand slowly down my torso toying with my belly button piercing and dragging her index finger down my stomach. I shiver violently.

"Fuck," I hiss.

I hate that my body responds to her every touch like she is life itself. Like she is everything it needs and within her embrace, the world is infinite. I have been fooling no one, not even myself when I said I did not want her. I do want her. I have since the moment my brown orbs locked on to her steely blue ones. Everything she has said to me has not been lost upon me, my heart has absorbed the impact of those words and they have festered inside me, like a splinter beneath my skin. I can no longer deny the raging tempest of our love.

"Please," I beg softly.

She drags her finger lazily between my legs and makes slow circles over my swollen clit. "Please. Please. Please," I pant.

"What?" She says apathetically.

"Naomi, please fuck me," I scream out.

She dips her finger into my molten center and I cry out. "Fuck!" I scream not caring if anyone hears.

"Oh," Naomi says quietly. "You're so wet."

"You know you make me wet," I gasp out. "Just fuck me."

Her finger moves slowly in and out and I writhe around beneath her. Trying to get her to go faster and put another finger in.

"God!" I shout. "Fucks sake!" I am an incoherent mess. I am raging with passion for her. "At least put in another, please."

"Perhaps," she says pulling her finger out slowly and dragging it back up to my clit. Teasing it so lightly, not enough to give me release but just enough to stoke the embers burning in my belly.

"Fuck!" I shout again passionately pushing my body upwards into the pillow, my hair tangling beneath me.

Naomi suddenly rises from the bed and moves away from me.

"Where are you going!" I shout.

She stands there eyeing me up and down. Nervously, looking like a frightened child.

"I love you," she says quietly.

"I know," I sputter, panting heavily.

"Fucks sake, I want you to love me back," she says with tears brimming in her eyes. "I've never wanted anything so much in my entire life. Why can't you? Why don't you?"

"Naomi," I breathe.

"I don't know if I can do this," she says softly wiping her eyes. "I see everything. I see you with me, you love me Emily. You do."

I nod stupidly at her words not fully comprehending them. "I'm a vampire," I say again as if that magically will make this situation any less awkward.

She looks at me in disbelief. "I know that. I don't care. I wouldn't care if you were a goddamn toaster oven, if I loved you any more than I do now."

I let out an exasperated chuckle. "Well, here we are then. You love me. I love you. Were a bunch of emotional and supernatural wrecks and I'm ridiculously horny. What ever shall we do about this?" I finish wiggling my eyebrows.

"Wait, what did you say?" Naomi says breathlessly.

"I'm horny?" I say confused.

"No, before that." She says making a circling motion in the air with her finger.

"I said, you love me...and I love you." I finish slowly smiling. "Now, are you going to leave me like this? Or are you going to satisfy the woman you love?" I say smiling cheekily.

"You love me?" She says breathlessly.

"I do," I say softly. "I love you, Naomi. I realize that now. I can't promise anything but that."

She rockets forward leaping upon me and smothering me with her kisses. I gasp out in pleasure and what is it? This strange feeling that makes me tingle all over and feel like my ribcage is swelling with every breath? Happiness.

I find it strange and beautiful, happiness. I laugh delightedly as she wraps her arms around me and kisses me differently than before. She runs her smooth, pale hands over my breasts playing with my already over-stimulated nipples. I moan again loudly. "Fuck." I breathe into her lips. "Naomi, god. Jesus." She quickly moves her hand between my legs and finds a steady rhythm on my clit, sliding over it, making me buck wildly beneath her.

"Enough teasing," I gasp out.

"You are incredibly wet," she pants hungrily.

"Yes," I gasp out swallowing hard. "And I want you to fuck me senseless right now, Naomi."

She bites her lip hard and smirks at me. "Fucking hell, Emily. You drive me crazy."

"Yeah, I know." I say smirking back. "Now just fuck me."

She grins at me as she moves to kiss me again, her tongue slides into my mouth at the same time her fingers enter my heated center. I scream into her mouth as she pushes herself into me in a steady rhythm. "Fuck. God. Oh, yes." I scream uncontrollably. I am very vocal during sex. It is always the quiet ones, they say. Naomi is more thoughtful with soft gasps and wide eyes shining. I buck like a bronco and scream like a banshee. It delights Naomi in everyway. Her body responds to mine and as my thigh comes into contact with her center, I feel her extreme arousal upon me. "Jesus!" I scream out. She smiles wickedly and pushes into me harder adding a third finger. "FUCK!" I yell. "Yes, Naomi!" I scream as I push my head back letting my dark brown tresses tangle beneath me as I writhe beneath her covered in glistening cool sweat and moonlit ecstasy.

Her rhythm is steady and I can feel my orgasm building. I can barely breathe, my stomach muscles are tensing, I cannot fight the urge to close my eyes and curl my toes. The muscles in my thighs are burning as she pushes into me, her soft body against mine as she whispers into my ear. "I love you, Emily."

I am not scared to hear it anymore. It fills me with such a rare feeling of pleasure and joy that I groan loudly and whisper into the night in response. "I love you. I love you. I love you." It is raw, it is honest. It is how I feel. It is everything I never knew that I wanted and everything I have ever needed. It completes my existence and makes me whole. She makes me whole.

My orgasm rips through me, a thousand points of light dancing within me. My body feels weightless and my soul feels free. Those three words had frightened me coming from her, like they balanced upon the blade of a knife. One slip and I would be gutted by their weight. But now they are beautiful to me, coming from her small, tangled lips; pink and inviting. They open the doors to a new world, spinning before me; a brave new world where all things may be possible, a place to feel grand and infinite, forever.

She clings to me lovingly through out my repeated orgasms. _I told her I was turned on._ She unbinds my hands and I bring them around her in a strong embrace. She curls her body into mine, her long leg draping over me. I sigh contentedly, kissing the side of her mouth.

"Are you happy?" I whisper in the darkness.

"That you are mine?" she questions.

"Yes. Because I am yours." I say simply.

"You cannot imagine how that makes me feel. I feel limitless and I feel wonderful," she breathes.

"Where do we go from here? I mean how do we manage this?" I ask to no one really.

"You think I know?" Naomi says shifting closer to me, her head leaning onto my chest as if to hear my heartbeat, with only the screaming of silence to greet her. "I can't hear your heartbeat," she blurts out.

"I know," I say sadly. "But if it could, it would beat for you, Naomi."

"I could see this," she says. "Us. Together. In my head, a million ways. I've seen us, always together. But I never thought for one second, it could be as wonderful as this feels. Knowing that you love me too, I feel like I could do…I don't know."

"I think you could do anything," I admit shyly.

"Really," she says beaming at me hopefully in the darkness.

"Yes." I say. "Really."

As her soft body finally surrenders to sleep, I muse at how good I really have it. The hunger for blood begins to boil within my veins, reminding me of the weight of the curse I bear. It has not left me. I rise slowly, taking careful care not to disturb my beautiful blonde. She murmurs her disapproval, but stops when I stroke her smooth hair and instead hums delightedly in her slumber. I smile contentedly.

I wrap myself in my silk robe and I make my way into our "kitchen" which has been converted to make use of maximum blood storage capability. I look around in the darkness, things have been knocked over. Containers tossed about, blood splattered on the floor and walls. I raise my senses too late to catch the heavily labored breathing of a lycan. Freddie. I gasp as his fur covered arm wraps around my mouth. I feel myself being pulled towards the exit, I begin to kick and claw at him. He is quite powerful as a wolf. I almost had forgotten about the full moon now that Naomi was not bound to it. I had let my guard down and it might get us killed. I begin to scream. A tall thin man in a black suit emerges from the dark hallway; he holds a golden cross in one hand and a sharp stake in the other.

"We must hurry," he says to Freddie. Freddie growls in response. "I must say the incantation." He is a mystic. Their kind has existed as mercenaries for the last few hundred years, their services going to the highest bidder. He motions toward me and I hiss under Freddie's arm. He pushes me closer to the mystic who douses me with blessed water. It burns and I growl deep in my throat. He begins to chant.

"Novum, dictus benicious. Forua, naoetou, benatador." He eyes me sadly. "To the ends of the earth and the space between, the darkened heart of eternity."

We are moving now, through space and time. And I am afraid. I have no idea where we are going and no idea when I will see Naomi again. Love. I have let it in and now it tears me apart inside, the thought of not seeing her burning searing holes within my chest. I scream into the void and it is swallowed in the darkness. _"Naomi,"_ I think. _"Save me."_

**Please Review. I certainly appreciate it and will feed you tiny grapes and purr delightedly.**


	14. Halfway Home

**A/N: Again thanks to my reviewers. It makes me feel special and appreciated. This writing thing is time consuming and I appreciate your responses soooooo much. Freddie chapter again. Sorry he upsets you ladies, he's just doing his job as the bad guy in this story. It's a short chapter by my standards but I think it progresses things quickly enough for my tastes. I don't want this to go on too long and bore you. Possible future sexy-times will make you hold-fast and hold on until the end, yes? :D Enjoy my ramblings.**

**Places Unknown – Time Unknown – (Freddie)**

Revenge.

Every single second of my existence has been ticking away towards this end, every single moment gliding through my veins like mercury. Revenge for what you may ask me? Well, I would say, _"Revenge for being born." _Revenge for these countless pain filled hours, revenge for the solitary weight of my curse weighing me down like an anchor around my neck. Revenge against all that is good and pure, in rejection of me. Every single moment, every breath I have drawn in, has been bitter and reeks with the taste of it upon my lips. You can not imagine what it is to be me, any more than I can imagine what it is to be you. But I can feel it so much that it is killing me. I feel everything so keenly, every slight, like a paper cut slicing into my smooth flesh. It is what has brought me to this moment. Every moment of rage boils down to this, making the universe pay for the birth of Frederic McClair.

"Emily!" I growl out, my rage bursting within me.

"Fuck off!" She breathes as I pin her down to the floor of the Endless' caverns. They are nowhere to be seen.

The mystic I have paid to transport us here and protect us with magical enchantments, stands like a statue as I forcefully push Emily to the pavement.

"What do you want from me?" She yells.

"I want the world to burn." I say simply. "I want everything to feel as empty as I do. Every human that can to taste the bitterness of this existence."

"What do you mean," she sputters.

"I want to build an army, an army of lycans so large that the vampires will be overcome. We will wipe your kind from the face of the Earth. It will be wonderful."

"You're insane," she whispers.

I laugh. "Yes, I suppose. Don't you agree Mr. Walken?" I turn to the mystic staring at my wolven form wide eyed and silent.

He stutters a bit. "Yyyyes?" He asks seeking my approval.

"Oh, Mr. Walken," I say furrowing my brow. "I've forgotten your bonus. Come here."

He tentatively steps closer to me and I lurch my upper body forward sinking my fangs into him, not enough to kill him but enough to make him one of us. He falls to the floor, rivers of blood seeping through his fine dress shirt as he chokes upon the truth of my intentions.

"You monster!" Emily cries out. "Why are you doing this?"

"Oh, Emily," I say growing louder picking her up and slamming her against the wall roughly.

"Tell me something real," I shout. "Tell me something true! Open up and let the flood of your sadness wash over me! Like a river overflowing its banks, swelling, gorging, sucking everything under! Tell me that you don't want the world to pay for making you suffer!"

"I don't," she says softly. "Pain is inevitable, Freddie. But suffering is optional. You make your existence, the whole of it, ugly or beautiful by your own wishes."

"I don't believe you," I growl. "Everything festers and decays, even love. You'll see," I say spitting upon her as I let the words escape me.

"I'm sorry Katie didn't love you Freddie, but that's not how love works. You can't blame someone for not loving you anymore, or not falling in love with you to begin with."

"This isn't about her!" I scream smashing my fur covered fist into the wall.

"It isn't then? You're angry when you look at my face because you see her, taunting you. But that's not real. She doesn't even talk about you Freddie. It wasn't about making a fool of you. It was about two lonely people seeking comfort in the wrong people's arms. It was a mistake, but a harmless one. You have a marvelous gift to be able to make it right, to make your existence matter more than this dark, empty thing that you've embraced."

"I can see why she loves you," I say softening momentarily tracing my fur covered paw across her jaw line. She shudders at my touch and I recoil from her a bit. I am more a monster than she is, more empty and broken in ways that cannot be fixed. But perhaps somewhere I am happy, perhaps my life isn't gained or lost for nothing. Somewhere perhaps someone is there to save me. A vision of my own blood hitting a white washed wall vibrates in the air before me. No. There is nothing for me. Anywhere.

I clench my hand into a fist and slam it into the wall beside Emily's head.

"I have come here, to the ends of the Earth and it wasn't enough to escape the weight of my own soul." I chuckle. Emily eyes me sadly.

"It is too late for me now," I shudder. I feel myself turning human again as the night draws to a close. My soft boyish face shocks Emily as she stares at me in my human form.

"Everything will end as it is supposed to, it always does. Where there is light, there must also be darkness. They can't exist without each other, my dear. You and Naomi burn so bright that I swear you are meant for something better than this. You are the light. And I dwell forever in the endless dark. Do not be sad for me, it is what I am supposed to be, at this time. I still hold out hope that somewhere I am happy. I will not be unhappy forever." I smile awkwardly though my own tears.

I rise up and grab a Claymore that I had leaning against the wall. Emily's eyes are scared. I push my fist into the air and raise my voice. "Rise my brethren and prepare for our finest hour!" I shout into the caves. Hundreds of fellow lycans emerge from darkened passageways and Emily's eyes widen in shock and she gasps. She is thinking about the odds, her family of five (including her) against over three hundred lycans.

"Things often end badly, because they have to." I say eyeing her sadly. "The story sometimes can only end one way."

"I don't believe that." She says bravely. "I believe you have the choice in your own life. It can end in so many ways, your story."

"Sometimes though, you can only be what they expect you to be." I say softly. "I am their leader. I must do this."

"There are only five of us, let us go." She pleads softly.

"Four," I correct her. "Cook, Katie, You, and Effy."

"And Naomi," she finishes. "Five. Let us go."

"And you'll let my army run over the Earth and devour it, washing our sins away in their blood? I don't think so, Emily. I like you, I do. In some small world, we could have been friends. Very far away from here, I think."

"We could have," she says kindly. "I hope that we are. Very far away from here," she says sadly.

I stare at her as two of my brethren chain her wrists. I continue to eye her as these words fall from my lips. "This sword is magical, forged in these very caverns by one of the endless themselves. It is made from mystical silver. It is made for killing werewolves, Emily. I am going to kill Naomi with it."

"Why? Why would you do that?" she screams.

"I have to. Once I know her secrets, it is the only way this can end." I smile at her sadly.

I hear the thunder as it begins to rain again outside the caverns. I hear Emily screaming as we drag her out into the Manchester fields. I wait with her and with my army in the pouring rain, for night to fall upon us again and for Naomi to come to us.

As the rain drenches my clothes I turn to my sister Karen whose eyes hold a deep regret and perhaps, sadness at my actions. I turn to her and give a small smile, she does not return it. The rain is harsh and cold as the large drops splash against me, breaking open upon impact. The water saturating the earth beneath my bare feet, the soft dirt becoming moist and clinging to my toes as it surges between them, I smile broadly. The hours pass on end and I do not feel their precession upon me. I only await the time that beckons me.

I howl out into the daylight, the grey rain clouds letting shafts of light burst through them like explosions in the sky. I dance around in the rain in a tribal fashion, my foot soldiers stand still; steely eyed watching the horizon, watching for her. I want her to find me. That is why I sent a letter, via the now lycan mystic written to Naomi, sent two seconds after I took her. _Ah, time travel._

I heard she found Katie and Effy humping each other, somewhere in a field. How magical that must have been for both of them. I laugh. She told them to help her save Emily. They found Cook drunk at a local pub finishing off his evening and now he joins their crusade. I am about to find out what Naomi Campbell, _Christ sakes is that her real name?_ Is really made of. I am about to find out who she really is.

"They are coming for you." I say to Emily.

"Don't hurt them Freddie," she pleads. "Five against three hundred isn't fair odds!"

"Oh my dear, who ever said life was fair?" I say nonchalantly. I am jumping up and down, my body surging with adrenaline. "Come on then!" I shout into the rain. "Come on!"

The thunder rumbles upon the horizon, the sky darkening under its weight. We all stand drenched to the core but I pay it no mind. I eye Emily's form in her silk robe sticking to her body and for a moment I linger upon the shape of her, the sweet, delicate mystery of her. I think it is funny that she is Katie's twin, when they are so dissimilar to me; even in appearance. I banish my unclean thoughts of her, but they return unbidden as I stare at her body through the thin silk layers. A dull ache nestles itself within my stomach. A howling begins within my soul. I look away from her. I have to focus on something else. Something other than her beauty and the innocence that I somehow find even more appealing than her mere form. I feel if I could but touch that innocence for one second, it would wipe clean the slate of who I am and make me a better person; somehow less alone, less lonely.

There is something in her eyes, some dark mystery playing out; something that draws me in when I look at her. She does not mean for it to happen. Does not mean to pull me to her, but there it is in her eyes, beckoning; gleaming like the sunrise, all lemon yellow, soft brown and gold. It is like she is trying to tell me something, every time I look at her. It is asking me to understand something. I want to know. I feel like if I could just gaze into her eyes endlessly, then I would now what that is. I look down at the ground then back up into the sky. The thunder rumbles again and as it gets closer I feel it vibrate through my body.

"Yes!" I scream. "I hear you!"

"Who are you talking to?" Emily shouts to me.

I turn upon my heel and take the risk to gaze at her again. Her dark brown hair clings in tendrils to her face and winds delicately along her pale neck like small serpents. Her skin shines almost white from lack of sun, giving it a pale glow. Her eyes are dark and shine as they are illuminated by lightning. Her glance illuminates me, like lightning. I smile at her. "I do like you, Emily." I say needlessly.

"Who are you talking to?" She asks again.

"I am talking to the Earth," I yell to her. "This is what is right for us. We are creatures of the Earth, tied to the tidal forces of its Moon. You are vampires and belong to nothing. Nothing is what you are and nowhere is where you go."

"I am far from nothing," Emily replies honestly.

"You are quite special," I reply. "It is good that in your existence, you have felt someone truly love you. You have had someone truly _'make love'_ to you."

"Shut up!" she yells to me. "This isn't something you talk about around three hundred of your pervy lycan friends!"

I laugh boisterously. "This isn't about your body. This is about you, Emily. I see such purity, such innocence in your eyes. Even in this world of lies, you are still hopeful. It is incredibly sexy, my dear; almost, unbearably so."

"This doesn't make you _'less'_ of a pervert in my eyes," she says sarcastically.

"It isn't about your body at all. Honestly, if I could just get inside of that part of you and just feel its warmth, it would be so wondrous."

"Again, this doesn't make you sound like _'less'_ of a pervert there, buddy." She says caustically. I laugh at her. She delights me on so many levels, it is a shame we cannot be friends.

"Freddie!" I hear Karen yell. "They are coming!"

I turn my head to face the horizon and see four figures silhouetted upon it. _They did not even bring back up._ They are not afraid. The sight they must see before them must be terrifying and exhilarating; three hundred lycans, swords in hand to decapitate vampires or run a certain lycan through her rampaging heart. Emily bound and rain drenched, held captive by a gang of fiends; her sister's ex-boyfriend holding the leash and hosting the party.

Effy walks with Katie hand in hand, finally united by their intense passion and love. I want to vomit from jealousy.

Cook walks near Naomi, occasionally patting her reassuringly on the back as they march up hill to meet us. They are still a long way off. Night is beginning to fall. We are still in the cycle of the full moon. We are all becoming much stronger now. How unfortunate for them.

There is so much that can be born in this moment. It is bursting with potential, this day. It is like a vessel waiting to be filled. It is a blank page, waiting to be written.

**I kind of think that Freddie feels this way because of the shit way they ended Series 4 of Skins for him. Just making him visceral and furious was all I could think of. Please Review.**


	15. Wear You Out

**A/N: Review me. *shimmies* Effy's perspective. Thanks for reading to all of you! I heart you all. Enjoy. Kind of pervy, but it's my first official go at "Keffy" relations. It felt kind of weird writing this considering the fierce crush I have on Emily, but I did it for all of you. The things I do, for your love.**

**Bristol, England and other places – Both Past & Present – (Effy)**

I have seen a thousand seasons pass before my eyes, their endless procession of green, brown, stark white and gold; but I never thought I would hear those words fall from her soft, elegant lips. I never thought for one second, that I would be inside that golden light.

"_Fucks sake, don't make me say it. I love you. I'm in-love, with you."_

Those words had detonated inside me like the most violent of bombs. I felt them rake across my wind swept heart and felt their impact leaving a mark upon my soul. All I had ever wanted, in that moment, realized. I lurch my body forward and propelled myself into her kiss. Into her delicate, inviting mouth, but she did not pull away. No, instead she grasped me tighter than I thought possible, pushing her tongue inside of my wanton mouth. Wrestling with mine and making me lose all rational thought and breath. My legs felt shaky. Effy Stonem perpetual bad ass, weak in the knees over some girl. No, not just some girl. _The only girl._ The only girl I have ever loved.

It was **1809 in** **Bristol**, when I first met her. I have never forgotten that first glance. When I saw her, I do not even think she noticed me. But I have loved her ever since, all my life. All my existence has been about her smile, about her laughing brown eyes, about her delicate lisp. All my endless evenings have been about her eyes, flickering in the light of the bonfires, her pale arms waving as she danced in the moonlight with her twin. Katherine. I have never seen a place or time more beautiful, an explosion of sound and fury, like Katherine Fitch.

I was already undead by the time I met her. I was taken long ago, into those endless nights but I no longer had the strength to weep over them. Or, the life I had lost. I had always thought I'd fall in love with some lean boy with bright, quick eyes and run away to lands unknown. I never thought for one second that I would be a monster and that love would be torturously out of my grasp. Or, that I would fall so hopelessly in love with a brown eyed girl with soft pink lips and a shining smile.

I went to the harvest festival in our town that night. A night like any other, but that is how destiny is. Any night could be that night, no matter how mundane or small. I wandered the streets aimlessly, broken and alone. My eyes were desperate to take in the beauty and the wonder of a life I'd long forgotten. I approached the city center, where the annual bonfire was held. Dry leaves crackled beneath my boot steps. I hiked up my flowing skirt and let the lace tickle my calves as my boots crunched through the dead foliage. The cold wind buffeted around me but I pulled my cloak closer around my pale, white shoulders. The dark red hood shielded me from the hard caress of the cool, indifferent winds. I leaned up against the nearest building and took in the city's center square. People danced around the bonfire, twisting shapes and limbs and violins played happily screeching out into the darkness. Shadows moved and twisted along the walls all around them. They were dancing too. Even creatures of the dark must dance to forget. All great and precious things are lonely, my dears.

I laughed to myself as I watched them dance, men with their wives, children and old men. Their simple delight in their existence made me smile. I no longer had that luxury. I no longer wanted it. Then, I saw her. Her small, graceful form twisted and turned to the music. My heart burned within me. I watched her holding hands and dancing with a girl who looked so much like her, they were twins. But my eyes were only for her. Her hair a much darker brown than her twins, her eyes the most paralyzing shade of deep sienna. I swallowed hard as my eyes raked over her face and down her neck to the delicate shape of her collarbone and the pale, milky white of her bosom; which she had pushed up almost torturously with a corseted bodice. I stared at her with wild abandon, she fascinated me. She filled me with such longing, I thought I might burst. She smiled at her twin and they spoke to each other playfully. Then, she laughed. She laughed and it echoed through the square. Vibrated off the bricks, alleyways and darkened corners, until it echoed through my chest and into my heart. I clutched at my heart, beneath my breast, it felt like it was moving again; pounding out a symphony that mirrored her own heart beating.

I have never been one to believe in love at first sight. But there I was, gasping for air. I was clutching at my heart beneath my breast, dumbstruck and full of awe at the sight of her. I looked away momentarily. _What was happening to me? _Her laughter pulsed inside of my brain and I thought about ripping her dress from her small, elegant frame. I thought of pushing my tongue into her mouth and caressing her pale, firm breasts. I was panting. I was raving mad in an instant. I wanted to make her shake and quiver beneath me. I looked back up at her and it was if she was dancing in slow motion; turning, the light dancing around her, caressing her as I wanted to. I wanted to be in love with her. Not just make love to her. I wanted to love her, in the most old-fashioned sense of the word. I wanted to make her laugh, I wanted to hold her when she cried; I wanted to love her at her worst and see her at her best. The very thoughts struck me as absurd. A girl like her would never love a monster like me. She would be forever out of my reach and I would ache through all my eternities for her. I would burn. It would feel wonderful I mused, even if I burned alone.

She moved away from her twin, excusing herself to go somewhere. Somewhere wonderful to contain all her beauty and splendor, I am certain. _Christ, Eff. Get a hold on yourself._ I move to approach her sister. Left standing near the bonfire, her dark eyes almost a mirror of her sister's.

"Good evening," I purr out.

"Oh, hello," the other girl offers. So innocent and lovely as well, her warm smile softens my hard heart. The fire flickers in her eyes.

"My name is Effy Stonem," I say extending my hand.

"Effy? That's a rather odd name," she chuckles out playfully. "I'm Emily. Emily Fitch."

"Was that your sister you were dancing with?" I ask impatiently. I had to know her name. Her name held such power to me, if I could but know it, I could unravel the mystery of her. Know the aching soul of her.

"Yes," she giggles. "Her names Katherine, she'll be back in a moment if you'd like to meet her."

"I don't know," I sputter. _Meet her? What would I say? I love you. Since the instant I saw you my world has stopped spinning on its axis? You ignite such a fire within me. _ No, I would stand silent. Looking shrunken and twisted while she spoke to me. I would look hurt and awkward as her words burned into me. It would be painful to endure her gaze knowing that she would never love me back. It would be painful to think of being her friend, when all I wanted to do was make her scream my name as we illuminated the darkness. It would be torture to look at her and not be able to kiss her. I did not want that, at all.

"I think," I sputter. "I think I must go, lovely to meet you Emily. Please give Katherine my sincerest apologies."

"Wait," Emily yelled as I fled from her. "What is Effy short for? Also, why did you introduce yourself?"

I spun on my heel smiling. "Elizabeth. Effy is short for, Elizabeth. And I don't know, my dear. I just wanted to meet you. If you need me, I'll be around."

"I don't know what that means," she yelps. "You're a trifle cryptic. Has anyone ever told you that?" She finishes yelling with a smile.

"Yes," I say smirking. "And I do not think you will be the last." I say as I move down a darkened alleyway.

I continue watching them like a pervert for the rest of the night. I even follow them home. I peer in their windows and watch as Katherine strips down to her chemise. The flames flickering in their fireplace render her night gown see through and I see every inch of her beauty before me. The fires rage within me as I rub myself through my dress. The ache in my loins grows painful as I watch her move and stretch, embraced by the soft, warm glow. I continue frantically rubbing myself until I reach completion, throwing my head back. Thinking the whole time of her slender fingers working me into a frenzy. I softly kiss the window pane, drawing a heart upon it. _Oh, Katherine how you have marked me._ Marked my heart and you do not even know it.

_**One year later, 1810.**_

I stumbled drunkenly down the alleyways of Bristol and found myself high on the taste of some girl's blood. High on her scent, high on her kiss and she had been wonderful. She was a distraction from the yarning abyss that screeches out to me, threatening at any moment to swallow me whole. I sauntered through the abandoned cobblestone streets only to see the lights guiding me to something. They vibrated with intensity as I approached an unassuming deserted alleyway. Then they stopped vibrating. The lights stopped humming. The abyss stopped screeching. And I saw her. I saw, her. The one person I have never stopped thinking about, crouched in an alleyway, clutching her sister, crying. My heart broke into a million pieces, shattering on the pavement like a china doll.

I moved towards them slowly.

"Emily, it's me Effy. Are you both okay?" Their sniffling stopped in tandem. _How adorable._

"Effy, you're here? What are you doing here?" Something was very wrong. I could not hear the sweet music of either of their heart beats. They were dirty and seemed cold, trembling and shivering. As my soul, trembled and shivered in Katherine's presence.

"What has happened?" I asked bewildered.

"We," Emily choked back her sobs. "We we're attacked. Some men, they made us monsters. Stay away from us, Effy."

I smiled moving forward. "Hush. I would give up anything to help you." I said gliding forward to embrace them both, wrapping my cloak around them.

Katherine looked up into my eyes, stifling her own sobs. "Why?" she whispered.

I was captivated by her eyes just then and stared with abandon into the delicate orbs I have never forgotten. Every single detail of her, etched into my brain. "Because," I said brushing a strand of hair from her cheek and letting my hand linger across her jaw line, feeling her shudder beneath me. "It is who I am. I feel like I've been waiting for you." I finish simply.

Destiny. What part does fate have in all our lives? What threads connect us and bind us to each other? Somewhere at the end of my heart is a string that has bound me to Katherine and the further I ran, the more it hurt. Everything has brought me to this moment. Back to her, kneeling in her presence and basking in her scent.

"I am a vampire," I finish dully.

"What?" Emily gasps. "Were you a vampire when I met you that night at the bonfire?"

"Yes." I say simply.

"The bonfire," Katherine murmurs softly. "I never saw you there, but I think I felt you."

My head snaps to look at her again. We are so close and if her sister was not here, I would kiss her face off. I swear to the gods I would have her screaming my name. But this is not the time for that. This is not the place.

"Yes," I say. "I felt you too."

_**The Present**_

I took care of them that night and every night after that. For over two hundred years. I burned with the weight of my love and at times it crushed me. Pushed me down and I never felt more low. Then other times, she would smile at me. Or hold me while I pretended to sleep, all the while stroking my hair and whispering things to reassure me. When she was around the bleakness of my existence did not feel so unbearable. When she smiled at me, the lights stopped their inexorable dance and the voices stopped whispering their torment. I felt almost alive beneath her gaze. I would feel even more alive if I could writhe beneath her, I just know it.

But now that moment is here, within my grasp, bright and shining. She moans into my mouth and I grow bolder still. I lay her down under the shelter of a large tree and push my body down on top of her. She kisses me lustfully and I can barely contain the raging fire within me. I push down her bodice and begin to suck her breasts in earnest. I growl low in my throat. I am more aroused than I have ever been. Every moment pales in comparison to this. She gasps out my name. "Effy." I shiver violently at the sound of her lust filled voice.

It is still raining softly, but the tree shelters us under its branches. I move up to kiss her mouth, my tongue gently but wantonly probing hers. She feels so warm, so soft. I am dying to touch her. There. I kiss down her collarbone and to her breasts and take one of her erect nipples in my mouth. Swirling my tongue upon it, she writhes beneath me. I am so awestruck, so unprepared for the power of this, I might die. Two hundred fucking years of lust-filled tension and her kisses explode upon me like nuclear bombs. I shake and feel my foundations crumble, under her touch. She is palming my breast and tweaking at my nipples through the fabric. I am groaning involuntarily. I rip my shirt from my frame and remove my bra so that no barrier stands between us. Nothing can stop this now.

She gasps as she takes in my body in the moonlight. I do not know if it is because I am a girl, or because I am almost naked before her. She blushes lightly, her cheeks turning a delightful shade of pink. I only kiss her harder for it. I only take her hand and run it over my body, pausing over my left breast.

"For god's sake, Katherine. Touch me or I will die." I gasp out.

She gasps again and she lurches forward attaching her lips to my breast. She moves her tongue in a delicious fashion around my nipple, swirling, her tongue dancing over me. I buck my hips into her hard. She groans and pushes my skirt up around my thighs. She pushes her fingers past the thin, now soaked material of my knickers. And then she is there, right there; inside of me, moving deliciously slowly, one finger gathering moisture. Feeling me coat her finger, she moves to insert a second. I groan loudly and move her head up to crash our lips together. I moan into her mouth loudly and she swallows it with a moan of her own.

For someone who has never done this before she moves with courage and confidence. I would expect no less from my 'Katie Fucking Fitch.' The world is but within her grasp if she seeks it out. I have no doubt about this now.

I am burning up inside as she moves to pin me down. Her arm steadily pounding into me as she kisses me passionately.

"You're so beautiful. Oh, god. Have you always felt like this?" She gasps to me near tears.

"Always. I was just waiting for you to notice." I gasp out as she licks and sucks my neck.

"Oh, god. Jesus. What took me so long?" She sputters softly as she looks into my eyes. "What took me so long? You feel so amazing, so gorgeous." She moves to kiss me again and I smile into the kiss.

Endless seasons have marched a steady procession and behind my eyes I held unshed tears from want and longing. I have loved her from the moment I laid eyes on her. From that very moment my heart had been hers. And now in the soft moonlight she professes her love to me, her desire for me. My heart swells and it feels like it could burst. The bowed ribbed cell of my ribcage expands painfully and my gift heart screams clear into the night and swells.

"I love you, Katherine. I always have."

"I love you, Effy. I love you. I do." She says as her fingers drive me crazy beneath her.

I remove her bodice and push her skirt up as well, pushing her knickers down. I fondle her nipples and move my hand between her thighs. Her wetness runs down them. I gasp at this revelation. She is turned on for me, because of me. I swallow hard. It is so beautiful that I choke a sob down. I bury it in my throat. I push my fingers through her wetness gliding over her clit, swirling over it.

"Oh, god." She says throwing her head back. "Yes."

I push my fingers into her and lean forward to kiss her as we drive each other towards simultaneous orgasms. I work her body lustfully and rough, but with passion and tenderness. I have two hundred years of passion pent up inside me. I wonder when she fell in love with me. I wonder if it has been as painful for her all these years. My arm burns as I push into her again and again and the sensation of her filling me completely is driving me wild. Her wetness is coating my fingers, my own is coating hers. I feel it approaching. I feel my muscles tense and my jaw set, hard.

I feel it as my orgasm rocks my entire body and I arch it upwards. I feel hers take hold at the same time rocking her to her foundations. Ripping through both of us and gutting us completely. I shudder as she clings to me in the aftermath, her fingers still inside me, mine still against her. She draws a shuddering breath as she removes her fingers from me as my aftershocks have subsided. She moves them to her lips and licks them. I nearly choke. That was so god damned sexy, I nearly died.

"You're so fucking amazing." She says in her delicate sexy lisp.

I laugh playfully. "Yeah. So are you babe. I love you." I kiss her forehead, then I kiss her lips tasting myself upon them. I deepen the kiss, she happily responds.

She pulls back and smiles at me. "I love you too."

"When? When did you fall in love with me, I mean," I question softly.

"I think I feel in love with you that night. The night I first met you," she whispers.

"The night I found you both in the alleyway?" I ask dumbstruck.

"Yeah, but I didn't realize it then. You know? I was such an idiot. Can you ever forgive me?" She says stroking my jaw softly.

"Yeah. I think I can," I say kissing her lips gently.

We lay there for awhile embracing. Katherine falls asleep on top of me and I cannot bear to move her. It is markedly uncomfortable, but she is so beautiful and still that I cannot even imagine moving her. Her soft, warm body presses into mine and I am content.

I hear a rustling in the woods. I hear footsteps. I see Naomi approach us, halting suddenly.

"Oh my god." She yelps causing Katherine to stir.

"What?" Katherine moves up slightly still covering us. Shielding us both with her body.

"Bout' fucking time," Naomi utters.

"Shut up, bitch," Katherine laughs. "What are you here for anyways? Shouldn't you be shagging my sister's brains out?"

Naomi stiffens. "That's why I'm here. She's missing. I found this note from Freddie."

Katherine jumps up covering her breasts with her left arm and swiftly pulling her skirt down and reads the note.

_Naomi,_

_Meet me in Manchester on Stalwart's Hill. I will be waiting with Emily. Do not let her down. You do not have forever. Bring Katie will you? I have missed her so. _

_Kisses,_

_Freddie_

She crumples the note between her fingers and lets out a scream.

"That fucker! I'll fucking kill him if he hurts her!"

I rise and swiftly put my clothes back on, ignoring an uncomfortable Naomi. She moves and puts her hand on Katherine's shoulder.

"No one wants to kill him more than me, Katie. But I'll settle for getting her back unharmed. I love her."

"I love her too, you know?" Katherine says bluntly.

"I know," she says softly. "Cook is waiting at Keith's Pub. Let's get him and we can go. I am ready for this."

"Are you?" Katherine asks her. "What if he hurts her Naomi? What if you have to be without her?"

"I'll never be without her really. She's a part of who I am now. She always will be. Loving her is the greatest thing I have ever done. I won't let anything happen to her."

"I know how you feel," Katherine says while getting dressed. "Loving her has set you free."

"Yes," Naomi smiles to her.

"Yes," Katherine says grasping my hand and holding it smiling at me softly. My heart swells within me.

"Let's go save, Emily." I say into the night.

**Still a bit more of this story to go if you all want. Let me know okay? I don't want to bore you all. Review me as I find it great motivation.**


	16. Family Tree

**A/N: Thanks to all my new reviewers! Glad you loved Effy. I seem to excel at "Naomi" and "Effy." IMO. I wonder what that says about me. :) **

**Bristol, England and Other Places – Past and Present – (Katie)**

We walk hand in hand to save Emily. We walk clustered together in a frightened group. Naomi's heart is pounding inside her chest like a wild drum. I glance at Effy's face, it is cryptic and emotionless. Her cool blue eyes are reflecting nothing. Vacant of the love and adoration I saw shining there a few mere moments ago. It always startles me. It still startles me that her eyes can be so warm, flooding me with a million different emotions. Washing over me taking hold of me and in another moment, cold and barren like the vast expanse of space.

_What do you want me to say?_

_I love her, okay?_ _I get it. _It is not like I imagined it. It is not fluid and transparent like glass. It is mystical, dark and wild. It is terrifying, earth shattering and it paralyzes me to my core. It is not neat and perfect. It is not any thing I dreamed it to be. But I will say that it felt like I fell in love in an instant. But nothing happens in an instant right? Everything is a slow unending procession of events, multiplying themselves over and over until you suddenly have something different than what you started out with.

Except this. Except her. She has never _"just been,"_ anything. She has always been everything. I have spent two hundred years denying her, but she is the song in my heart that cannot be denied. I have spent years feeling the torturous touch of others, sliding across my skin; hoping that I could forget the love, bury it somehow and make it small. It raged inside me all the while, gnashing its teeth against my weary heart. It only grew larger with each passing day. Until one day, I felt that my heart had grown too big to be contained by the wrapped lengths of my bowed ribbed cell. I was afraid that I might die from the sheer misery of it. But I am still alive, in love and wide eyed in my time.

Effy Stonem, did you know all this time I have loved you?

I am the type of person that is hard to get to know. Once you do, I am rather fucking wonderful. This is not me, being conceited. People are afraid of me, you know? I am described as intense. Intensely what? I do not know. I worked so hard to be this dark and mysterious thing, but I guess it worked too well. I am so dark and so mysterious that no one had thought to chase me, thought to love me, but her. And I suppose among all the other reasons I love her - that is one of them. She is the one who cared. That has made all the difference in the world. I was unapproachable, austere, desolate and alone. But she is not frightened of me. She does not flinch at my stare. She has only ever seen me as one thing, myself.

The power of being loved for who you are is immense. It is powerful and all encompassing. So simple, yet so hard to find and I am completely undone by this, utterly and wholly wrecked by it. I felt myself being pulled to her from the second I gazed into her blue eyes. On the night which was the darkest night of my existence I found love. I did not expect to ever find it. But there in her eyes the fire of it burned. I felt myself burn too. I felt her hand graze my cheek and linger on my jawbone and I shuddered with lust. But I was not gay. That was Emily, not me. I did not fall in love with women. But what was this aching and longing in my heart? What was it, if it was not love?

**Seville, Spain - 1910**

We had run from England after Effy's stunt with killing that girl. Accident or not, it had happened and now we all had to pay the price. It wears on you, you know? Running. It hurts so much because it matters. It fucking matters when you run away from everything you had grown to love, it just does. But Effy said that I had to bury that love if I hoped to survive. She said I had to bury it so deep that it only hummed inside me, a small warm glow. She had stared into my eyes when she said it and I wondered what she had meant at the time. To bury it, was to deny it. To deny it was to be consumed. I did not want that at all.

We walked hand in hand as we often did down the streets of Seville. Spain was a beautiful place, so soft and ancient, so like England but so different as well. I walked with her down the cobblestone streets as our heels clicked along them. I went with her from bar to bar, looking for the taste of someone's blood, looking for a way to forget. Effy quickly found someone, a man and a woman to go off with.

How it pains me to watch as her hand slips slowly from mine. I watch it slide out from my own in a daze. I watch her walk to them and throw an arm around each one of them. I watched her kiss them, the pale imitators, the false idols and I have envied each one of them. I have kissed the unworthy as well, felt their rough, calloused hands dig into me; their harsh breath upon me as I moved beneath them. Everything had felt so wrong, but I could not place why. I just continued letting him take from me but somehow I still gave nothing, unforgiving and unyielding as the moon; stark white and capricious.

Afterwards we reunited, soaked in the blood of our victims. In the flickering streetlamps Effy smiles as she grabs my hand. Delicately wiping excess blood from my mouth and lightly kissing the corner of it.

"Our love is god!" She yells to me as she throws her arms out into the darkness and laughs like a child.

I cock my head to the side and I watch her run into that darkness and become absorbed in it. Occasionally becoming visible, sliding in and out of the scope of the soft lights. _Our love is god._ There is nothing else to worship in this grand charade, nothing worth anything but 'our love'. How many times had I fallen to my knees begging for some sign, some rare flickering signal that told me something was looking out for me? How many times had I been drowning in myself and screamed out for a savior? The barren expanse of eternity howled out to me. I heard no echo. I received no grand signs. I saw no dreams or visions. No one else had thought to love me or had thought to care; no one but her and the rest of my little 'family'. Yes, Effy. Our love IS god.

But what about our love? How did I define it? I wanted her so badly, to take me in her arms and surround me with her presence until I felt nothing but her. I wanted to inhale the delicious scent of her. I wanted her to pull me into her and shield me from the dreaded monotony of this existence. She really seemed to enjoy it, the wildness, the freedom, the savagery. But sometimes she trembled as I held her and she cried. I swept her curly brown locks from her azure eyes and I whispered to her gentle things I did not believe. They hung heavy with the weight of my disbelief. _It will be alright. Do not cry. It is okay. Do not be afraid. _Love? Do I love her? I do not know. I think I do. I mean, I hope one day it will not come out as a strangled whisper, buried deep within my chest. Twisting and turning like leaves in the wind, floating high above her while she slumbers.

I often think about what it will be like to touch her. And sometimes while she sleeps during the harsh light of day I run my hand down her body and softly squeeze her breast. She shifts slightly and moans, pushing her backside gently into me. The heat always rises between my legs and I try to stop my thundering heartbeat. A dull ache grows in my loins, the light of them, sleeping next to me. I rise quickly and move to another bed. One that is cold and achingly lonely with her absence. I shiver internally. An endless procession of false idols is all I saw before me. _Our love is god._ And yet I had worshipped at the feet of so many others. All rough and chisled from stone. I know that I love her but I cannot make myself just let go and 'be' with her. If 'our love' is god, then I am a betrayer of the faith.

**Moscow, Russia - 1944**

The world is in the throws of war. As I war within myself. I follow where she leads me, moving lock-step to the rhythm of my heart. I hear the drums. I hear them reverberate through my chest, my heart, my fucking heart. I follow where she leads me, moving lock-step to the rhythm of it. The snow whips around us and the cold air slices through us. I pull my coat firmly around me. Why did we ever come here? To hide. To be hidden. But there is no where I can go to run from this. To run from how I love her. I torture myself though, slowly. I hold her every morning sunrise, I nestle myself against her and await the coming of the night. I await those moments when I am captured in her gaze and I feel infinite. Sometimes her lips curl up in to the smallest, most tender smile and I think I see it. I think I see her soul.

As night embraces us and we run headlong into it screaming like mad children, I move away from her. I seek others out. Some way to forget, but I cannot forget her. Not with her here beside me, laughing, holding my hand, the arch of her slender neck causing a pulsing low in my abdomen. We drink in dirty bars, absorbing the sheer terror and misery of their existence. It makes ours seem so small and unimportant. War. I sit alone at my table, letting the sounds around me filter in my ears like distant thunder. Emily smiles wearily to me and walks with purpose as she brings a bottle of vodka to my table.

"Hell sends an angel bearing gifts," she utters playfully, maybe a little drunk already.

"Yeah," I respond lamely knowing she will sense something is up.

"What's wrong?" She says her face twisting in confusion, making her delicately adjust her position into a seated one.

"Aren't you tired, Emsy? Tired of being this way? I want something grand and beautiful, not all this sadness, this darkness. Aren't you tired at all?"

Suddenly, her face falls and her gaze is serious. "Yes, I'm tired. But what happens if we give up hope? What happens if I stop wishing for that beautiful thing? What do I become then?"

"I want to leave this place. It's so dark all the time, so cold. I'm tired of it." I wipe at tears forming in my weary eyelids.

"What's 'really' wrong?" she asks me again.

"I just," I begin with no way of knowing how to tell her that I love Effy. We are sisters, but I keep this so close to me that it has nestled itself inside me, intertwining with my bones and with my skin. If I let it out, will it rip itself from me; taking everything I am with it? When you are close to someone they know only one-tenth of you, maybe less. It is impossible to ever truly know someone. Something always remains hidden, a delicate secret that is only their own. Everything I am is locked inside of this crude vessel until the end of my life. I just want to break myself open against them, make myself transparent; then they could see my true heart, know my true soul. No one would ever question my intent or question my heart again. But I am afraid that if I do, it will all bleed from me until there is nothing left of me. I will lie sprawled upon this cold, dirty floor; mouth agape, eyes staring at the dingy white of the cracked plaster ceiling forever.

I close my mouth and then open it, gaping for air. Closed and then open. The words remain buried under layers of ash and rubble.

"What is it, Katie?" she breathes to me again more concerned.

I stare down into my glass. The vodka in it is clear and I can see everything through it, like a pane of glass. I can see everything. I look back up into the eyes that mirror my own, but are nothing like me at all. I shiver.

"It's…I'm fine. Really, I just want to get out of Moscow. Hell, out of Russia. Can't we just go somewhere warm? Just once? I'm so cold here, Ems. So very cold."

Emily stares at me concerned. "Okay," she reluctantly mumbles. "Okay. I'll tell Effy and Cook. We'll leave tonight."

I was tired of the explosions rocking the foundations, shaking the buildings, unsettling dust and ash. I was tired of the self-exploration, feeling each revelation explode upon me and unsettling me deep within my soul. I was not the introspective type. That was Emily. There are so many things she is, that I will never be. I envy her for it sometimes. I envy the adoration that everyone holds within them when they look at her. I envy the long glances and delicate, metered stares of prospective lovers. Everyone wants to love her. But no one could even glimpse half of who she is. The mystery would confound them or drive them mad with want. She is just that type of girl.

I spy a woman staring at Emily from across the room. She looks like Emily's type, tall, blonde and pale.

I seize the opportunity to remove Emily's piercing gaze as my envy towards her grows. Her stare cuts across me like a diamond upon glass. I feel it scraping away the layers. Trying to unearth something, to unbury it; I must keep it small and hidden.

"Ems, that girl is staring at you."

"A lot of girls stare at me," she says without the slightest hint of arrogance.

"I think she kind of wants you."

"A lot of girls want me," she says again almost bored with my unspoken suggestion.

"Come on, last one in Moscow. Make it count." I say attempting to sound light and cheeky.

She eyes me cautiously. "What else do I have to do with my time?" She responds listlessly. There is no fire in her eyes when she looks at her. It is as if that girl might as well not be standing there at all. Emily rises and moves away from me and I watch her go, retreating further from me. The one person, who should know me best, does not even know me at all.

I am drowning in myself and I am asking you to save me. But you do not know how. I am gasping for air, but you do not know what I need. I cannot say it. I cannot bear it. Can I blame you for not trying? Can I blame you for not knowing? Can you blame me for suffering this way? I do not know how to be, any other way. I pick up the bottle of vodka Emily brought to me and I gulp some down. It burns a pathway down my throat and the burn warms me up from the inside out. I watch Emily lead another girl away with her and I sit here alone. Effy and Cook have probably pulled tonight. Effy maybe twice. I wince at my own revelation. I take another swig of vodka from the bottle.

A tall and thick framed Russian soldier approaches me. "Slow down, little one. You do not know spirits the way I do."

"All I know are spirits," I spit at him. "All of my friends are spirits." My Russian is terrible, but I try all the same. I feel as if I should feel more at home here, but it is a wasteland. My mother once told me her father came from Russia. That was over a lifetime ago.

He stares at me for a long moment and smiles. "You are feisty. I like that in girls."

"I am no girl. I am a ghost," I reply stumbling as I get up from the table. "Don't pay the ghosts any mind."

I stagger down the street in the darkness, the cold winds whipping around me. There are small flurries of snow, whirling around me in the tempest. I stumble into someone and murmur my apologies.

I look up and see a tall, lean boy with dark brown eyes and soft brown skin. He smiles at me warmly. His grin becomes shy and sheepish and somewhat alluring.

"Hello," he says speaking English to me with a Bristol accent. He sounds like home.

I smile back at him just as warmly.

"Hello, my name is Katie." I blurt out, instantly regretting all the vodka coursing through my veins.

He laughs expressively and smiles to me again. "We should get out of the cold, you know?"

"Agreed," I shiver. "We could go to my place." _Good god, why did I drink so much?_

"We don't even know each other. I could be some kind of psycho." He says playfully holding up his hands and making clawing motions.

"Well, you're obviously lycan. But other than that, you seem pretty alright. Fit, actually." I say obviously flirting.

He laughs again. "Such a clever girl. What ever shall I do with you?"

"Such a clever ghost," I mumble.

"Hmmm?" He says craning his neck to hear me better.

"Nothing, it's nothing. Let's go somewhere," I sputter.

"I feel as if I should tell you that I'm quite dangerous." He says in a still boyishly charming fashion.

"Same." I say taking his arm.

Again he laughs at me. "Then we're agreed. We're both dangerous as fuck and lonely. Let's both of us, drown ourselves in each other."

"Agreed." I slur out. "Let's go…" I pause and raise my eyebrow to signal my intention to get his name.

"Freddie," He says bowing slightly. "Just call me, Freddie."

I hear bombs exploding in the distance...

**Present Day**

Old lovers are ghosts that roam my abandoned hallways. They haunt me. And now, I take the axe that sits in my hand and stare into its metallic gleam, and I think about burying it into the body of someone I used to love. I stare at it, glinting maniacally. My sister, I am going to save her. God help Freddie if he mistook her for helpless. She is anything but. I go, however to make a stand, to show her that I care. I need the opportunity to tell her that for all the things she does not know about me, that she knows the most. She means the most. I need to say these things now. They are desperately important. I love you, everyone. I always have. I always will.

I clutch Effy's hand in mine as we walk up Stalwart's hill. I glance at Cook and he gives me a sadly reassuring smile. Naomi stares ahead of her as if everything else is invisible. She is following the thread that is pulling at her heart. It is stabbing her so hard her eyes are watering. Cook pats her softly on the back.

I stare before us, up the hillside. Three hundred lycan soldiers stand at the ready. The rain is drenching me to my core. I stare at Emily whose eyes are wide and fearful. I look at Naomi, sword in hand, at Cook, pistol, teeth and fists. Effy holds onto an intricate dagger in one hand and clutches mine gently in the other. She brings my hand up and kisses it softly. I look back at the lycan army as the daylight shrinks below the horizon. They are all becoming teeth, fur and terror. I plead with eternity to show me my fate. I hear nothing. Effy gives me no sign. I sigh loudly.

"I love you all, you know?" I blurt out suddenly. Everyone stops and turns to look at me. Katie Fucking Fitch devoid of fluffy emotions. Suddenly explodes with the sheer force of love.

"What? Well, I do. I just wanted you to know, it's important alright?" I say shrugging forcefully. "Yes, even you Naomi. Close your goddamn mouth, it's embarrassing!"

Naomi's eyes crinkle at the edges and she begins to laugh loudly. "I love you too, Katiekins. I love you too."

She turns towards the lycan hordes and she squints hard, seeking Freddie out on the battle field. Thunder echoes in the sky around us.

"Right, let's get on with this then." She says forcefully.

Thunder rumbles again loudly and it sounds like bombs exploding in the distance.

**I hope this tides everyone over until things are less hectic. Happy Holidays my lovelies.**


	17. Ambulance

**A/N: Sorry about the lack of update during the holidays. I would blather on about work and other stuff but that's boring. So let's just say "I was jumping out of planes, wrestling alligators and riding atop unicorns while spearing homophobes." Yeah. That's it. Here we are my sweet chinchillas. Your reviews are like sweet nourishing milk to the tiniest mewing kitten you shall ever hope to meet, myself. So thank you all for your remarkable kindness and interest in this story. **

**Manchester, England – (Naomi)**

As I stand here, drenched by the cold English rain, I realize that _love_ is not nearly enough. I want a word stronger than "love." Something more intense, more visceral and more real, something that conveys half of what I feel for Emily. The word _"love" _does not hold enough power for me. I see her from a far and my heart clenches painfully in my aching chest. Her soft brown eyes pierce through me, like a pin prick to my heart. But now she rushes through me like a river and I drown completely. I feel her rushing over me, even at this distance between us. I am powerless against it. It tears at me and I want to scream aloud. Love does not seem strong enough to contain everything I want for Emily. I want to wrap her up somewhere inside me and protect her in hidden rooms with velvet walls. I want to see her laughing. I want to be there when she feels alone. I just want to be there, always. No, love does not even begin to cover it.

I see it in the wilderness of my mind, rough and untamed. I see her smiling at me, lying in the grass in an open field. I pull leaves from her hair and we laugh. Every single second of lives I have never lived, blooming within me. It is strange and beautiful to gaze into eternity and see the one thing you need and to know without a doubt, your destiny. I have felt the burden of the lives I had left unlived, weigh heavy upon me. Only to feel them surge, burn and bloom in her presence. The second I laid eyes on her, I knew I could love her. In that small room, damp and cold; I knew, I _would_ love her.

I clutch my sword in my hand, my blonde tresses sticking to my face and the water dripping from my brow obscuring my vision. I rub at my eyes with my free hand. There are so many lycans, small specs in the distance of the open fields. The sword is heavy, dipped in pure silver. I must be careful not to cut myself with it. If I do, the silver will taint my blood and it will course through my body and stop my wild, untamed heart. If it had happened before I met Emily, I might not have cared. The dull, endless days, stretching onwards with no relief had numbed me. But now, oh now I had a reason. I had been tamed by a wonderful girl with a delicate smile and laughing eyes. My wild heart had found a home in her warm embrace. I did not wish to die. I knew the odds. I did not care. Nothing within me will ever give up.

_I will die screaming and laughing, I promise; all teeth, fury and fists. I promise her that._

I hear Katie shout that she loves everyone. I turn to look at her in shock; I see the fear reflected in her eyes. Love. Love does that to you. You feel invincible and amazing, until the second you love someone and then all of a sudden you are afraid, afraid to lose it. Afraid to have life wrench it from you by any means. It is only when you love that you are the most afraid. Perhaps though, I am always scared. Naomi Campbell, the little girl who would pull her covers up to her neck to protect herself from monsters in the night. But these monsters are dark and wild and will not be abated by a cotton comforter. No matter how much I wish it was true.

"What? Well, I do. I just wanted you to know, it's important alright?" Katie says shrugging forcefully. "Yes, even you Naomi. Close your goddamn mouth, it's embarrassing!"

I laugh boisterously and tell her I love her too. We will not die today, Katiekins. Not today. I have far too much I want to live for.

"Right, let's get on with this then," I say. I twist the leather wrapped handle of my sword in my palm. I feel the tendons pull and strain beneath my skin. I see my knuckles go white as my grip strains around the damp hilt.

We stand in a straight line. No orders given, Effy, Katie, Me and Cook. I look to my right at the girls and nod. I see them exchange loving glances.

How cruel it seems for us to all find each other and for fate to dangle our own destruction before us at the same time. Perhaps though, the best of life must be taken with its worst. And perhaps, that is the lesson I have waited a lifetime to learn. The thing that startles me most of all, is I would do it all again. To feel every cut, every scar, stab of loneliness and degeneration; just to kiss her once more, to feel her lips capture and slide over mine. To feel her body pressed flush against me as she breathes my name onto my lips. Her hands skillfully gliding across my shivering flesh. To see her as my hands tickled her slender ribcage; the gleaming of her pearl white teeth as her expressive mouth opened to let the music of her laughter out. To feel the silk of her skin beneath my fingertips as I brushed strands of her dark brown hair out of her small, expressive face. There is a language we share that need not be spoken. I am speaking volumes to her without ever saying a word.

I turn to my left and smile awkwardly at Cook. Such a brave boy that deserves all the riches life can offer him. Somewhere, I hope fate will be kind to him. I hope it has been kind. He has accepted me without question, from the day we met. I do not think anyone I have ever known, has extended me such unending kindness. Beneath his boisterous and selfish exterior is a man with a heart of gold. I hope that somewhere, this counts for something.

I look across the wild, open fields at Emily and my heart nearly breaks, fear. In her eyes I see it, she cannot hide it. I have never seen her eyes hold that emotion before and it nearly breaks me. She is afraid, because of me; because she loves me. I offer her a weary, but loving smile. I try to pour all the comfort I can into it, because I never want her to fear anything. I never want her to experience any harm in any way, because of me. I guess that is what love is. I want only the best for her with no regard for myself. I want nothing from her, but her heart in exchange for my own, to know that she loved me too, above all others; for the rest of my life. How funny to know only now, what love is. I could not explain it to 'the Endless' before. He had asked me to tell him about love. But now, I know. I think I understand completely what it is. It is selfless and pure and it makes my ribcage swell painfully but delightfully as well. I drink in the sight of her soft brown eyes and elegant smile. I know what 'love' is now. I would fight, die and rage through out all my eternities to protect it. It is immutable, unchangeable and powerful. I love her. I love _'her.' _Her eyes lock with my own and her lips turn into a gentle smile. _"I love you." _It says without saying anything at all.

I put my right hand over my heart and smile warmly to her. _"I love you."_ I chant inside my head. _"I love you." _

Emily's smile becomes wide and her glance illuminates me like lightning is illuminating these killing fields where I have come to face my destiny, where I have come to realize my purpose.

To love and be loved in return, everyone, everything without flinching. That is why I am here. Right now, in this moment. Everything is bursting and blooming inside me so painfully I want to cry. Life, for all its misery; brings me the glory and beauty of love. I want to scream out to everyone. _I love you all._ I look at my friends who stand here with me. _Can you not tell? How can you not see it?_ But I smile, hold it in and think that life will diminish it. Yet every morning it is there renewed like a well spring bubbling deep inside me. Yes, even if I am wrong about how this will end. I love. I feel so much now, that I feel infinite.

I run across the fields quickly, sprinting to meet my destiny face to face. I feel my sword collide in a burst of steel and sparks. I move, I parry and I thrust. I slash and hack with the weight of my sword pulling at every muscle in my straining arms and back. I feel the blood hit my face, flecks of it splashing upon my bare teeth. The taste of it is oddly metallic and dull. I wonder how they can drink this all the time. I wonder how it tastes in her mouth, that beautifully expressive, elegant, little mouth of hers that was made for kissing. How it must feel sliding along her small, skillful tongue, pink, soft and wet. I smirk as I run another lycan through with my sword. His body falls, the water splashing against my feet as he hits the dark, rain-soaked Earth.

I see flashes of my friends in the fray. It is like watching still frames from a movie being cut and spliced together before me. The movement I take in is stilted and I can barely make out each action for the obscuring movements of lycans almost dancing before me. Effy. I see her with her delicate blade, the blade of royalty, clutched in her pale palm. The gold glints in the faint, fleeting flashes of light. The jewels embedded in its hilt; glinting with every movement of her delicate wrists. There is so much about her I do not know. Katie. Back to back with her lover, swinging her small frame to power her axe. I search for Cook and see flashes of him, hands drenched in blood, laughing like a child. I surge forward and my heart pounds in my chest in anticipation. Emily. I see flashes of her standing chained, near Freddie; his dark brown fur, bristling on his back; up his muscled neck and across the back of his wolven skull. I make my muscles taut and they burn beneath my flesh.

Suddenly I see a flash of one of the Endless standing in the field near them. I suck in a gasping breath. I see him open his mouth to speak. Even across the distance I hear him, like there was no space separating us at all.

"Naomi, here you are. Why are you here?"

I feel time beginning to slow; each moment is stretching out and expanding in his presence. I feel myself gliding across the chaos to him.

"I've come to save Emily." I bluntly state to him staring at him as if he had grown a third eye.

"But you already have. You love her. She truly loves you. For all the darkness that is her curse, it is over-ridden by her love for you."

I smile softly. "I have to save her from Freddie though." I state coolly tousling my damp blonde locks carelessly with one hand.

"You have saved them all, Naomi. Through love. They love 'you'. They have lived selfish years, thinking only of themselves and petty wants, until you awoke the love that lie dormant within them. They are worthy champions now."

Time is shifting slowly, all movement is almost stilled. Everything moves in fractions, the lightning stands still in the sky, daggers from heaven.

"And they have awoken it in me. All of them. I love them all, you know? I can't watch them die. I love them all so much."

"But that is what gives your mortal existence value. It _does_ end. All the glories, triumphs, balanced with the sorrows and degenerations. As much as we want the sweetest things to last forever, they are the most fleeting." His eyes pierce me with their honesty and I almost choke.

"Do you understand love now?" I ask him holding my breath.

"Yes, I think I do. Do you?" His gaze is soft and questioning.

I feel my own tears beginning to build and a sob lodging itself deep in my throat. "Yes." I gasp out.

"You understand how to love her?" He says again coolly.

"Yes." I say tears streaming down my cheeks.

"I have watched you, every time choose her, Naomi. But I have also seen you hurt her. I have seen you possess the rarest and sweetest of gifts and I have seen your potential to throw it away with both hands."

I have seen it too. In my mind I see a coward of a girl, running from a sweet young thing in a sheltered wood. I see her crying out to me. I see myself standing on top a building in Bristol, wind pulling my blonde locks chaotically around my face as I cry. _"I'm sorry. I was scared. EMILY! EMILY!"_ I shiver at the raw terror in my own voice reverberating in my ears.

"I know how to love her, now." I am not that girl.

"No, but the potential to become her is there. You do realize that, yes?" He gestures and raises his eyebrow at me.

"You don't understand me at all," I say firmly. "I love her. Do you get that? I love her and that means that when I say that, it is a promise. A promise that I choose her in her weakness, I choose her in her sorrow. I choose her above all others, in everyway imaginable. If I fail in showing her my love and adoration then I'll be damned if I won't win her back. Do you get it? I. Love. Her."

A broad smile sweeps across his face. "I have to see how this will end." He smirks.

Time speeds up suddenly like a car with the accelerator stuck down. I feel myself race towards Freddie before I can stop it. I see the blade of his sword extended as I rush towards it. I move my sword to block it, too late.

I feel my sword sink into Freddie, but I also feel his sword sink deep into me. Silver. Pure silver worms through my bloodstream. I do not know what has just happened. I hear Emily scream. My friends run to surround me as Katie, cuts Emily free. I gasp as I spit a mouthful of blood onto the grassy field. The rain stops. I see her crying over me.

"Shhhh, don't cry." I say feebly. "I love you, you know?"

"I know, I know," She says holding onto me. "I love you, too. More than anything."

Freddie holds onto my shoulders and grins at me sadly. "That's fucking beautiful," he says without a hint of malice. "I wish I could have that."

"I wish I could too." I say bursting into tears, feeling the weight of the unfairness of this bearing down upon me. "Why? Why did you do this to me? Bring me here? Make me realize I love her, if I can't have her? Fucking why?" I shout.

Freddie tightens his grip on my shoulder and smiles sadly. "It's not fair. It's not fair at all." He says sadly.

Katie is holding onto Emily as her body is wracked with sobs. She is whispering to herself again and again, but we can hear it as clear as day.

"_Help me. Help me. Someone please help me."_

"I'm sorry, you know?" Freddie suddenly says. The sunlight breaks through the clouds as daylight dawns and a mortal boy with sad eyes stares back at me. His sister runs up to him and hugs him from behind gingerly avoiding my blade sticking out of his back.

"You bastard. You stupid bastard. I love you. You're all I have, you know? Why'd you have to go and get yourself killed?" Karen says angrily while she cries on his slender shoulder.

"You're sorry, you're fucking sorry!" Katie suddenly yells still embracing Emily. "You take away my sister's one true love and 'you're fucking sorry?'" Her words are laced with so much venom it surprises me.

"Hey, I'm not going anywhere if I can help it." I say jokingly. Emily looks at me lip trembling. I feel myself growing weak. "Where are you, you skinny black-haired bastard?" I scream out. "I'm not going anywhere!"

The endless stands before us all now. I see his eyes boring through me. "You called?"

I scoff at his ridiculousness. "Yes, I fucking called! I'm dying you bastard! I tell you I fucking love her more than life itself and you reward me with a silver blade to my gut? What the fucking, fuck is that about!" _I am less than articulate when angry._

"Reward you?" He says slowly.

"Yes, I tell you I love them all. That they're my fucking world and you take them from me? What kind of sick fuck does that? You're impartial and cold, you haven't learned anything about love from mankind have you?" I yell my voice almost going hoarse.

"I've learned that love is the most powerful thing on this Earth. It transcends death. It transcends everything. Do you wish to be spared? Or do you wish Freddie to be spared?"

"What kind of choice is that?" I yell. "I don't want anyone to die!"

"You don't hate him for what he's done to you?" He asks me quizzically.

"No, I wish he could be happy too, you know? He seems like he'd be an okay guy! I don't fucking know! Can't you do something?"

"Yes," the Endless says solemnly. "Yes, I can."

Freddie stares at me for a moment. "You don't hate me?"

"I barely know you, mate. I'd like to get the chance to know you properly and then I could hate you if you want." I smile warmly.

He laughs softly. "I am sorry. So sorry for everything."

White light begins to surround us and I feel myself growing light. Is this what dying feels like? Is this it? "Emily, I love you." I cry out.

I find myself in darkness only a solitary light illuminating the dark. "Where am I?" I choke out.

"That is not important." The Endless says stepping out into the light. "What is important is what I told you earlier Naomi. You are powerful. You can do anything you set your mind to."

"Christ, you sound like my college counselor." I scoff.

The Endless sighs. "What do you want to happen now?"

"I want to be happy, with Emily. And Effy, Katie, and Cook. I want Freddie and Karen to be okay. I just want everyone to be happy. I want to see my mom again. I want to see Thomas and Panda. I want to be okay again."

"Hmmm." The Endless cryptically mutters. "Okay. You may go now."

"Go, go where?" I sputter.

"Home." He says.

"Home? You mean I'm not dead." I say feeling my body for the wound a blade made in my torso.

"No, not dead. Now go, Emily is waiting."

I find myself in Bristol once again, the familiar streets embracing me with their familiar sound and smell. I run to where Emily's family's hideout was. It is abandoned. Door boarded up and seemingly unoccupied for ages. I run the only place I can think of, my feet thundering beneath me. Home.

I reach my mother's house and nearly rip the door off its hinge. "Mom! Mom! Where are you? I need your help I can't find Emily, and…"

My words trail off and die in my throat as I see her sitting in my kitchen before me. My mother clasping her hand and having tea with her, but something is different here. Emily's skin is still pale, but now it seems warm and pink. Her eyes are still deep and brown and I nearly drown in them. Her small mouth curls up into a beautiful smile. I rush forward and pull her up from her seated position and embrace her tightly. "Oh god, I thought I almost lost you. I love you. I love you. I love you." I pepper her with sloppy kisses. She laughs delightedly.

It occurs to me that she feels oddly warm in my arms. I feel something vibrating through me. I feel something unfamiliar, musical and strange, her heart beating. I nearly fall over. I lean my head to her chest and listen to the music of it. Her heart. She is human. Not a vampire. Not undead. I kiss her chest where her heart lay. "Your heart is beating." I say softly.

"Yes, only for you." She says sweetly, shyly back. I rise up and look into her soft, dark eyes. I willingly let myself drown in them. Fuck, it feels so good. I lick my lips and stare down at hers. I move to close the gap between us and I hear my mother cough.

"Fuck sake, Naomi. I'm still right here. You don't see me kissing Kierian like a maniac in front of you, do you?"

I laugh embarrassed by my fervor. "No, I suppose not. So, you've met my girlfriend, Emily then?"

"Met her? Christ sakes, Naomi. She's only had dinner here for the last six months. I should hope she's your girlfriend from the way you've been nailing her."

Emily bites hard on her lip to stifle a laugh and I only look dumb founded at my mother unable to speak. I open my mouth and then close it. Emily grabs my hand and saves me from my idiocy. "We're going out for a bit, Gina." She says softly.

"Oh, okay. Have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." She says playfully to Emily and I stare at her gob smacked as Emily drags me behind her.

Once we are outside and a fair distance away from my mother's house she speaks.

"I don't understand it either, Naoms. I think my feet know where to carry me to find Katie. I think I know where to go to find everyone else. But things are different. Well, I'm mortal for starters. That's kind of a mind-fuck, after two-hundred years."

She guides me to a small, unassuming house and stares at its door with a white plastic cat flap. "This is it. This is where my family lives. But they aren't my family. My family died ages ago in a world consumed by darkness."

We stare at the door blankly and Katie approaches us coming from the back yard. She is wearing a bikini and sunbathing. "What the actual fuck is going on you guys?" She asks us bewilderedly. "Where is Effy?"

I shrug only becoming more confused by each passing moment. The front door opens to reveal a smiling little boy. He smugly eyes Katie's arse before excitedly exclaiming, "You're gorgeous, bitch!"

Katie yelps and tries to cover her bikini clad form. "Kick his ass, Emily!"

Emily moves forward and shoves him down, kicking him playfully in his ribs. "Fuck off, hopeless fucking perv!"

The little boy quickly gathers his wits and scrambles inside the house.

Katie turns to me again in desperation. "Naomi, where is Effy? For that matter, where is Cook? And what the actual fuck is going on?"

I stare back at her feeling feeble and my mouth going dry.

**Hope everyone had a great holidays. I spent much of it thinking of you all waiting on my update. :D Hope this satisfies. Please review. I wuv you?**


	18. Snakes and Martyrs

**A/N: Thanks to my reviewers! *gathers up all my sweet chinchillas and cuddles them against my bosom* (And, stop wriggling.) Sorry, this one's a short one. I'm working on wrapping things up and more sexy-times for all. Maybe in one big chapter. Possibly. We'll see.**

**Bristol, England – (Effy)**

I wake up screaming and it is not the first time in my life I have done so. It probably would not even be the last. I shot up upright in a strange room, sunlight filtering in through hastily pulled curtains. I continued screaming for some reason as my eyes took in my surroundings, the modern furniture, startling lack of color on the walls, the bareness of it all. _Who would live like this? _The last thing I remembered, I was burying my blade up to its golden hilt in an angry lycan. The dagger a gift, from someone I used to know. That reality did not make sense in this room. Nothing about what happened only moments ago; was anywhere near where I was now. I searched the room for my dagger as my screams died in my throat. I would kill the next person into the room. I would make them understand that chaos and Effy Stonem are not friends.

I have never been here but I feel a kinship for it; for this tiny room, for these sterile furnishings. I feel nostalgic for a place I have never even been.

**Coast of Sweden – 1646**

I pull my cloak around my shoulders to protect myself from the careless winds. I am saying good bye to someone, someone that I have come to love. I hate good bye. It is never satisfying. It always leaves a raw, hollow space inside me that aches and whines to be filled with the joy of companionship. Until I see you again, I will be aching. I will be suffering. Know that you mean that much to me. Know that if I never see you again, a 'you-sized' hole will exist in the very center of me. No one else will fit it. I would not want them to. But I cannot stay. I cannot allow myself to be tamed. My dear Queen Christina of Sweden wraps her slender arms around me.

"I wish you did not have to go." She says.

"Everything must end sometime," I say solemnly. "Our friendship is no different."

"Friendship? Is that what you would call what we have shared?" She says coyly.

I smirk knowingly. "Yes, intimate friendship."

She laughs loudly, brushing her auburn hair away from the slender curve of her ivory neck.

"I got you something, so you would not forget me."

"I will never forget you," I say honestly.

We have shared so much with each other. She harbored me and kept me safe, knowing I was a vampire. She hid me and made sure no one knew who I was. But I was sick of hiding. I often found trouble waiting for me. I did not know how to avoid it. And for awhile I was happy. We had been lovers for a time, realizing only too late that we made better friends. History never did her justice, the paintings, and her legend; never matched up to even half of who she was. But that is how history is; those who linger even but a fraction are gods.

She held out to me a small oak box. I took it gingerly from her small hands and I opened it. Wrapped inside a small piece of velvet was a gold handled dagger. Encrusted with three emeralds and assorted diamonds along the handle on each side, the blade was pure steel, folded and forged by a master craftsman.

"I cannot take this." I say gasping.

"You can. And you will. But promise me, that you will not forget me." She rushed forward and whispered against my ear.

"I promise." I say humbly.

"It is a shame we did not fall in love," she whispers still close to me.

"A part of me did." I say honestly. I trace my hand along her jawline. "I must go as soon as we reach land."

"I know," she says pulling back and moving to the edge of the boat's railing to look at the sea.

We stare at the waves for a long moment, before Christina turns to me and asks.

"Do you think it is possible to feel nostalgia for a place one shall never see?"

"Yes," I reply without thinking. "Yes, I have done it all my life."

**Bristol, England – (Present Day)**

I hear the thud of heavy footsteps as someone approaches the room that I am in. I cannot find my precious dagger. I frantically search the floor. I search the shelves. I search the bed. I toss a stuffed giraffe haphazardly into the air. I growl in frustration. A blonde woman in her mid-forties bursts through my door and takes in my disheveled and panicked state.

"Effy! Effy, God are you alright? I heard you screaming." She genuinely looks concerned.

"Who are you?" I scream at her. "What have you done to me?" I hear for the first time in centuries, the panicked thud of my own heart. It bashes against my ribcage and it makes me feel sick.

The blonde woman rushes to embrace me and begins rocking me back and forth. "It's okay. It's okay. Pateo is here. I'm here."

"Who's Pateo?" I say loudly in her arms, feeling oddly at ease.

She reaches across me and picks up the well-loved, stuffed giraffe. He stares back at me with piercing beady eyes and I can only stare too, as my lip begins to tremble.

Lives I had lived, shrieked before me. They were blazing past me like comets, burning through my atmosphere and choking out everything else. I was lost, with no way home. And I had no idea if Katherine was anywhere to be found in this strange, new world. I began to choke back sobs that become lodged in my throat. _Katherine._

"There, there," the blonde woman cooed. "Mummy's here, everything's alright."

I stared out into space. Mum. My mother. She had died in the 15th century and I had been undead, ever since. But here this woman was, saying she was my mother. And I was her child, named Effy. I felt even crazier than I had ever felt in that moment.

"Give Pateo a hug," she cooed to me.

I stared at the stuffed giraffe and he reminded me of someone. Of something, I thought I had forgotten or had lived in another life. The beady eyes glinted in the flicker of sunlight that cascaded through the curtains. I stared at Pateo and he stared unflinchingly right back into me.

**Seville, Spain – (The Past)**

Katherine and I had murdered a swath across all of Spain. I drowned my lust for her in the blood of others. I tasted them, when I wanted so desperately to taste her. We drank in every corner of that ruined city. We took and bled the life from it, so that we did not have to feel anything. I certainly did not want to feel this thing, this love I felt for her. I wanted to scream in agony every second in her presence. My core ached when she smiled at me and I came when she whispered in my ear or brushed against my hand. I vigorously wanked to thoughts of her as she slept beside me. I hoped that she would wake up and catch me. Catch me stroking myself, grazing softly against my hardened nipple and then she would not be able to contain herself and we would set the world on fire with our love.

But she never did. And so I burned within from my want. I blazed inside and let my hunger nearly consume me, body and soul.

I wanted to take a family. I did not know why. I guess I wanted to feel every drop of love bleed from them as they watched everything they ever cared for ebb away. I wanted to not feel so empty, for just one second. I selected them carefully. A small family with two children, a boy and a girl, I made plans to break in after dark.

I forced my way into their home, their lives with the stealth of a predator. It is who I am. It is what I do. I worked my way into the children's bedroom. I leaned over the bed to snatch one of those tiny creatures from the comfort of their tangled sheets. Suddenly, a pair of dark brown eyes stared up at me. So dark they were almost black. Unflinching.

"Who are you?" a small voice whispered. It was the little boy.

"I'm…" my throat had gone dry. "Perhaps I am the devil." I say softly.

"You are far too pretty," he said still whispering, yet beaming brightly.

"Thank you," I said bewildered. "I have come to take you to heaven," I offer feebly.

"I knew you were an angel," he said beaming even brigher. "But I do not want to go yet."

"Why? This place is misery. This place is pain, why would you want to stay?" I whisper with conviction.

The boy stares at me for a moment then responds taking my hand. "But I love it so. I get to breathe and eat and all sorts of stuff. I can feel the sunshine. I can hug my mother so hard that she forgets to breathe and then she laughs with me. I can run around with my sister. Everything is so beautiful." He smiles wistfully and I think I can almost see his heart swell with love for this world. I choke down a sob. "Why are you crying, angel?" He asks me holding tighter to my hand.

"I…I…" I cannot bare to look at him for a moment. "I have to go." I say getting up suddenly.

"So you are not taking me now?" He asks so innocently my heart almost breaks.

"No, I am not. No one will be back for a very long time. You won't see me again." I say moving one step further from his penetrating stare.

"It's a pity," he sighs. "You are so pretty."

"It was nice meeting you," I say with a wave, pausing for a moment.

"Pateo!" He whispers loudly to me in an excited fashion. "My name's Pateo!"

I choke back a sob as I look at the round face and dark eyes that embrace me with such unadulterated joy in them. "Elizabeth," I whisper. "I am Elizabeth."

"Goodbye, Elizabeth the angel!" he whispers loudly again waving excitedly.

I let the tears stream down my cheeks as I feel the weight of my horribleness bear down on me. "Goodbye, sweet Pateo." I whisper blowing him a kiss.

I run down the cobblestones wailing my sorrows out into the night. My legs carry me far from that small shack where I wanted dark things to envelop such a dear creature. I slump down a brick wall until my legs can no longer hold me and I am weeping in the streets. "Fuck. You are such a fuck up." I mutter to myself. "You fucking. Eurgh. Fuck!" I shout pulling at my hair. I get up and run until I am dizzy and out of breath. The darkness swallows my cries.

**Bristol, England – (The Present)**

I stare into the glassy black eyes of the stuffed giraffe and feel myself go numb. Pateo. Katherine. This world is not where I came from at all. But am I the sum of these things, these experiences that have made me into Effy Stonem? Or am I much more than even I imagined?

I jump up from the bed with a start, pulling myself from the comforting older woman's arms.

"I have to go."

"Go? Where? Just a moment ago, you were screaming and didn't know where you were. Do you think you should go somewhere?" The older woman sarcastically replies.

"I said, 'I have to go.' Not, 'I want to go.' There is someone I _have_ to find." I say with purpose rifling through the nearby closet.

"Why?" The bewildered woman who identifies herself as my "mum" replies.

"Because," I say turning around locking eyes with her. "I love her."

I watch as her jaw hangs suspended in slow motion as she opens then closes her mouth.

"Oh? I mean, Oh. I just thought you liked that boy Freddie is all, and…" She sputters.

"Freddie?" I scoff as I pull on my leather jacket and apply smoky eye make-up. "Please, give me more credit than that. What a 'fun sponge'." I remain focused on the task ahead of me. Pulling on cherry red doc martens and lacing them up. I slowly stand letting the last few seconds rush past me like a steaming locomotive.

"Wait, Freddie's here?"

Fuck. We're all in danger. If I am here by coincidence, accident or divine joke, I have to find Katherine. I have to save her. I have to tell her that she is all that will ever matter. All of the faces of my eternity, all of the women who have seen me laid bare, have never even seen half of who I was. In one smile, Katherine had seen everything I ever hoped to be and everything I actually was. She had seen me and loved me the whole time. And I had loved her irrevocably, dangerously, and exhilaratingly.

"I'm leaving," I growl as I whirl past the older woman to the door.

"Are you going to Freddie's?" The older woman asks me.

"I'm a little mixed up. Where is that again?" I say.

"Down on York Road, 4 and Tens Place." She says looking somewhat worried. "Get home before dark."

I smirk as I open the door without saying a word.

**Sorry, this one's so brief. More to come. Review me.**


	19. Dirtywhirl

**A/N: To those reviewing, I LOVE YOU! It takes so little effort to type a few words of encouragement, but it means so much to me. I've been hesitating on writing as I'm experiencing a bit of depression/writer's block. So here is the next piece. I hope it lives up to the rest.**

**Bristol, England – (Katie)**

My heart burns with in my chest. Aching and throbbing so painfully I think it will kill me. The thought of not finding Effy or worse; finding her and her being different, kills me slowly. What if I find her and she is not in love with me? What if I approach her, grip her face and push my hands through her tangled brown locks and she does not feel it? What if my lips collide with hers and there is no spark, no fire? What then? How do I repair myself? How do I prepare myself? I sigh as I pull on a more practical outfit. Emily waits for me in 'our bedroom.' But I have never seen this house before in my life. Or these people, my so-called family. I do not care though. All that aches within me is the echo of her, Effy. She reverberates off the walls of my heart and pulses through me. I cannot help myself.

Would it be fair to say she is haunting me? Because every time I blink my eyes, I see her face imprinted on my eye lids, dancing lights, soft blue eyes and pale white skin. I never wanted to need something this way. I thought that I would always be the one in control, but I am now barely contained and spinning upon the head of a pin, so wildly unprepared for everything. Is it fair to say that she owns me now? She has broken the vessel of me open wide, drank from me and I will never be the same. No one has ever gotten in that far, that deep. She is so entwined with everything I am that the weight of it crushes me.

I choose dark blue skinny jeans, a black tube-top and low top Chuck Taylors. More casual than I would usually go for, but I do not feel the need to dress up when my head is such a mess. On the contrary, the chaos inside me is tearing at me on a molecular level. Love has made me weak, made me afraid, pale white and trembling. I love her and it tears me apart every second of each day. _So, thanks for that Elizabeth Stonem._ Thanks for working your way inside me and intertwining with every fiber of my being, sparks and light shooting through my fucking veins. It burns me and warms me up from the inside out. I burn to touch her again. It will never be enough.

I want to ferociously devour her, every part. Sucking, nipping, and licking every inch of her soft skin. I want to push my tongue into her mouth and wrestle with hers fiercely. _You own me. You own me. You own me. _I sigh in frustration loudly as I make my way down the stairs. I curse my thoughts, they are treacherous and wild. I swore to myself that I would never love anyone so recklessly and I did not plan on falling in love with her, but I did. And I feel as helpless as a child in her arms.

I enter the living room to find Naomi and Emily kissing on the couch. Naomi's hands wander slowly tracing circles on Emily's back. I hear her moan and I snap from my trance. No way are those bitches getting action in front of me.

"Hey! You two! Cool it or I turn on the hose, yeah?" I shout in trademark Katie Fucking Fitch fashion.

Their heads whip around and they eye me like frightened dogs, hands slipping down to their sides. _Yeah, I have still got it._

"We've got to find Eff. Okay? That's our first priority. Then you can shag each other's brains out, m'kay?" I yelp helplessly. Emily jumps up and puts her arms around me softly.

"Shhh. It's okay. We'll find her." She coos to me.

"But what if, what if we find her and…" I sputter.

Naomi rises to join us and takes my hand sympathetically.

"She'd be a fool not to love you, no matter the universe Katiekins. Don't be afraid, it doesn't suit you."

I smirk at this. She is right, but I would never admit that to her in a million years. Just by default of her pretty little face, by the mere existence of it. _Yeah, what?_ I notice girl's faces, always have. I just ignored it as their beauty clawed at me, in the back of my brain. Their beauteous frames, supple skin and soft features filled me with adoration, filled me with a dull ache that throbbed in between my legs. I never paid it any mind. I thought everyone felt this way about women. I certainly did. The only person I can be is me. I am a traitor to this world if I pretend to be, anything else.

We make our way out of the house in a clustered group, much like before. Only now, it is to find the woman I love, and to find Cook. Everything is so fucked up. Everything is so fragile, but we did not realize how much, until someone; no something would rend our world asunder. Played with us like pawns, learned about us, through us, from us about humanity, and learned about love. We were creatures of the night, cursed by darkness; only seeing the light of love for the first time in centuries, fumbling in our inadequacies and somehow managing to find each other. What a sight, what a show we must have been to them? Watching us fumble, watching us struggle, and seeing our hearts burn. Oh, it must have been beautiful, but it must have been blinding.

Questioning my new 'father' I had asked him where we hung out. He stared at me blankly.

"_Freddie's shed." _He had said numbly, staring at me as if I had grown a third eye.

Freddie, of course. How could I forget my greatest mistake? In the end, it's all about the love. Love you have given, love that you took, and love that was stolen away in cold, dark evenings, in another world, over 70 years ago. His ghost haunts me, but it fills me with dread. The last time we spoke as lovers, I had twisted a hot iron into his chest, over his heart. It is not like Effy's ghost at all. She haunts me and it makes me ache. He haunts me and I feel like I could throw up. I grasp blindly at Emily's hand, but I don't make eye contact with her. I do not want her to see the tears burning behind my eyes.

**Germany – 1949 **

"What are you doing?" I yell furiously as Freddie pounces on a man wandering aimlessly, seemingly drunkenly, on the snowy streets; a vampire who is like a bloated tick, completely stoned on the feel of it and unaware of the dangers of over-feeding on human blood.

"I'm taking care of business!" He yells playfully as he punches the man and his fists become a blur of strength and fury.

I stare awkwardly at the sight before me. I know this man is a vampire, one of our kind and Freddie is hurting him. But I am dating Freddie. I am torn between my loyalty to my kin and the ties of love that bind me. But do I love him? I stare at him, so strong, so fierce, and so beautiful. And yet, I do not love him. I admire him. I adore him. I am attracted to him, but I do not love him. I have tried, tried to love him for his soft laughter, his dark eyes and lithe body. I have tried but it feels empty. It feels hollow. There is no release from the torture of this existence even in the throws of passion, do I feel ensnared. I struggle against my bonds in all their forms as they cut into me. Cut right through to the very heart of me. I would abandon it all if I could. None of it pleases me. Nothing of this world deserves my love. I stare down at my feet. I swallow the lump that has grown in it, the tears stinging; burning behind my eyelids. Fuck. I have tried everything and none of it pleases me at all. I love nothing.

I wipe at my eyes and scream at Freddie again. "Stop it you fuck! Just stop it!"

He stares at me with blood spattered on his face and grins, dropping the unconscious vampire to the cold, hard brick road beneath his feet. He lands with a squishy thud. I shudder.

"Let's go," Freddie whispers into my ear grabbing my hand. And we run, we run into the night and let it smother us. We run into a tavern and Freddie leads me to one of the well-worn, thick oak tables. "Sit," He mutters and saunters up to the bar to get a drink. I stare at the table top, nicked and dented, worn and useless. I feel the weight bear down upon my chest. I feel a pair of eyes gazing at me. They are burning into me. I slowly, lift my head.

Blue strikes me like an arrow from across the room. Small pink lips turn into a smirk. _Effy._ She glides to me like some dark angel and stands gazing down at me. "You've got blood on you," she calmly asserts.

"Yes." I say simply, looking helplessly into her eyes.

"It's vampire blood," she says again calmly.

"Yes," I say my eyes welling with tears.

"Freddie?" She asks her brow furrowing momentarily as she glances over to the bar where Freddie's back is turned as he flirts with the young Russian barmaid.

"Yes." I say again. "I just feel so helpless sometimes, Eff. Like I'm watching everything happen from far away; orbiting around it but unable to reach it, just helpless."

"This doesn't suit you Kathrine," she says staring at me. "Your fire is what I love about you." _Love? Did she say love?_

"My fire?" I ask still reeling from her last sentence. _What I love about you._ Surely she means platonic love. Why does the thought she means differently, excite me? She reaches out and runs her finger along my cheekbone. I shiver and close my eyes. When I open them, she is smiling.

"I know something that no one else ever will, you will _never_ be helpless. Go and show him that." She finishes with a smirk and a wink. I glance over at Freddie who now has his hands upon the barmaid as he twirls her around the room and she pushes herself into him.

"Right!" I say jumping up from the table. "Fuck all this." I walk over to the fireplace and take one of the pokers from the blazing embers of the roaring fire. I stare at the burning tip, blazing bright red. I then turn on my heels and march over to where Freddie stands flirting shamelessly. "Hey fuck face," I say from behind him.

"What did you say, Katiekins?" He breathes angrily as he turns to face me.

"I forgot to lay down some important ground rules," I say calmly.

He raises his eyebrow at me but remains silent.

"Rule number the first – I am second to no woman. Rule number the second – I run this shit. Don't forget it. Rule number the third – Nobody makes a fool of Katie Fucking Fitch!" I scream. I take the poker from the fireplace and take the burning tip and jab it hard at Freddie's heart. He howls in pain and drops to his knees. "You're dumped. Get to fuck!" I shout dropping the poker, letting it clatter to the floor.

I march away from him with a broad grin stretching across my face as Effy holds out her hand to me with a smirk upon her face. She wiggles her fingers as I draw closer and I move faster to link my fingers with hers and push our way out the door into the inviting arms of mother night.

**Bristol, England – Present Day**

We march to Freddie's sort of unprepared for what we'll find there. The shed is not much to look at. Dented, rusted metal that is barely standing of its own accord, dingy and unassuming, not where I expect to find someone as miraculous as Effy. I push hard on the door as it bangs against the other side of the wall.

I hear Freddie's voice bellow. "Well, Katie's arrived! Now it's a party, yeah?"

I move slowly into the room while Naomi and Emily follow behind me, hand in hand. Freddie's sister, Karen sits on the dingy couch chatting away with none other than a very surly and dejected looking, Effy Stonem. Her face is pained as Karen chatters on excitedly about fashion and celebrity tabloids. I almost burst out laughing at her face. She looks up at me with those eyes, penetrating me, asking me something. I stare back.

"Eff, aren't you glad Katie's here?" Freddie asks. "Get the girl a drink, yeah? Cook will be here shortly, so until then you're on drink duty for now. Chat up the pretty ladies will you?"

Effy rises slowly from the couch and stalks towards me. I watch her long legs move and my eyes glide up her slender frame. I feel my knickers flood in anticipation and I begin to tremble. She walks up and hugs Naomi and Emily, whispering a small 'hello'. She stops right in front of me, staring into me.

"Katie." She says.

"Effy?" I say. I reach my arm forward and brush a strand of her wavy brown hair behind her ear and let my hand bravely trail its way down her neck to her collarbone. I brush it gently and pull my hand away, my cheeks burning.

Her lips curl up into a sultry smirk. "Kathrine," she says more firmly.

"Yes." I practically gasp.

She pushes herself forward and propels her tongue into my mouth. Her hands wrap tightly around me and they wander over me, producing goose bumps in their wake. I vaguely hear Freddie and Karen in the background as they howl and whistle at our little show. The blood rushing in my ears is so loud, it's deafening. I want her. Like, now.

"Eff," I gasp. She pulls me by the hand out of the shed and around the back of it. She slams me against the outside wall, hidden by a very large amount of foliage from view, just enough room for our eager, sweaty bodies.

"I love you," she whispers by my ear as she places delicate, sensual kisses down my neck.

"I love you," I pant, my chest heaving wildly. I see her eyes train in on it and I shudder.

Effy moves her hands across my chest, feeling my rigid nubs beneath the thin fabric. I had chosen not to wear a bra for comfort's sake. _Well, maybe in anticipation of seeing Effy too._ I want her to want me? Is that so wrong? I want her to shake inside when we are apart. I want for her to be as destroyed by me as I am by her. I want the destruction to be mutual. She shakes everything I am inside and I feel myself grow weak without her touch. I want her to feel the same. To feel everything, is that so bad, to want her to need me? I deserve for it to be mutual. I will not settle for anything less.

She slowly tugs the fabric down my torso exposing my bare breasts. I watch her stare at me in wonder. I blush under her intense gaze. "You are fucking incredible," she breathes. "I can't bear how gorgeous you are. It's fucking killing me."

She reaches forward and grasps at my breast and rubs her thumb over the nipple, slowly making circles over it. I gasp and bite my lip. "Effy," I moan. She smiles at me then and moves to suck the other one. I feel her hot, wet mouth envelop my other swollen nub as she begins to lick and flick it with her tongue. I make feeble attempts to grip at the wall behind me as my knees begin to buckle.

"Eff, christsakes. I want you," I pant out.

She moves up to kiss my mouth after agonizingly teasing each breast in turn. My heated center is embarrassingly wet. I feel it run down my leg. "Shit." I gasp out. She torturously slowly moves her hand beneath my skirt and I spread my legs to give her better access. She pushes at it moving it up my thighs and cups my now, soaked core.

"Fuck." She gasps. "Look at how wet you are."

I stare directly into her eyes and shiver. "You make me wet, Elizabeth Stonem. Now, fucking take me already," I manage to stammer out.

She takes her slender hand and pushes my soaked panties down my thighs. I spread even wider and I hear Effy moan. Just from that simple action. Just from my heaving chest, my small frame covered in light sweat-coated sheen. My milky thighs spread open, wet, soft folds waiting, aching for her touch. "You fucking destroy me? You know that, Katherine? Fucking destroy. I just. I can't. So beautiful."

"Shhhh. I say pulling her closer to me. I grab her hand and push it to where I need her most.

I feel her fingers slowly push inside me. I gasp at the sensation of her filling me. I push myself down onto her fingers as I grab her face and possess her mouth. I moan loudly into it as I thrust myself down as hard as I can onto her.

"God, fuck. Oh, fucking fuck." She growls.

"Yes, Effy. My god, yes." I say as she sucks on my neck fiercely growling. I feel her leaving a mark on me and I love the sensation.

I ride her hard and she fucks me like our lives depend on it. But somehow, I think they do. My life depends on this, right here. Not the sex alone, the passion, the fire. Everything we are together, that we never were apart. Every single second was ticking down to tell me where my heart had always been and always would be, in her arms. I could go a million miles, I could run; but I might as well be dead.

I feel my orgasm building within me as she inserts another finger and finds no resistance. She moans even louder. I never figured Effy Stonem for a screamer, but I am so glad I was wrong.

"Fuck, Katherine. Oh, fucking god. Jesus. I'm going to…" She groans as she pushes into me moving again to suck my swollen nipples.

"Jesus!" I scream out, sure that the neighbors heard that.

I buck against her wildly and I feel us both begin to shake from orgasm. My walls clench around her slender fingers and she leaves them inside me through my aftershocks. Effy clings to me and I feel her press into me as we become one. "I love you, you know?"

"Yeah," I gasp out. "Yeah, I love you too."

"I feel bad for everyone in that shed," she says chuckling. "We were so loud."

"Poor bastards know what 'real fucking' sounds like now," I say laughing full on.

"That's my Katie Fucking Fitch," she smirks as she pushes forward and kisses my lips gently. "We should go in and apologize."

"You can apologize, babes. I'm just going to go in and have a beer."

Effy laughs again softly and I adjust my clothes. We grasp hands and lock eyes, slowly moving into another kiss.

**Sorry, this took so long. Again, I can only say sorry. Or, have another beer. **


	20. You Could Be Love

**A/N: I hope you enjoyed the last chapter. Feels weird to write "Keffy" action. I'll admit I ship most attractive females with females. Even walking down the street, I ship them. But all things considered, I think they had a story that wanted told. I like them together. Thanks to those who reviewed although, I still can't figure out why 20 chapters in, I don't have more. Something you like? Something you don't? Review me. It's the only way I'll learn. *flails kitten paws***

**Bristol, England – (Naomi)**

Katie and Effy storm out of Freddie's party together. I hear something slam against the side of the shed. _"Oh god not here,"_ I think. _Damn Katie and Effy_. I quickly run over to the stereo and turn it up.

"Yeah, I love this song." I blurt out.

"Really?" Freddie says incredulously. "I didn't take you for much of a Gaga fan. Huh." He says turning away to get another beer.

I stand awkwardly by the stereo as Emily, again, stifles her laughter. "Bad Romance" croons over the stereo and I shuffle over to Emily's side.

Karen marches up to Emily and myself and looks at us expectantly. "I know you remember before. You wouldn't have covered for Katie and Effy if you didn't."

I stare at her gobsmacked. "Yeah, we do. But why doesn't Freddie? He seems pretty oblivious. I mean, he invited us to his party."

"Well, we're friends yeah?" Karen says smiling. "And I'm glad he doesn't remember. He hated everything. He hated himself, so much. There was so much pain in his eyes every time I looked at him. But now, there's love. All that's left is love. That's the kind of happiness I want for my brother, okay? Promise me you won't tell him about before, ever." She says looking so desperate and expectant that it makes me choke up.

"We won't." Emily says grabbing Karen's arm gently, her soft brown eyes filled with empathy.

"What could we possibly say? Don't worry Karen." I reassure.

I hear loud whistling as the door is thrust open, revealing a very jovial looking Cook. "Hello, everybody!" he shouts.

"Cook!" Emily yells and runs to hug him. "Naomi and I were worried," she whispers into his hair.

"I'm fine, little one. Nothing stops old Cook. Not even a little bit of mind-fuckery like this. Bit of a trip this is, eh? Being human again and all." He says the last part quieter than the first. "Well, hellloooo love." Cook says shifting his attentions to Karen standing near us by the door. Her purple track suit and general appearance seems to please Cook as he licks his lips. "Always fancied me a bit of Karen," he says patting his stomach.

"Jesus," I say laughing. "You don't waste any time."

"Nah, blondie. Nah. You never know when it'll be your last moment, yeah? Gotta reach out and grab life by the balls." He says grinning boyishly.

"Gross, Cook. " I say laughing.

"Hey Cook," Karen says waving with a broad smile. And I think I see something there, a spark. I see a spark in the making and I hope the rain does not come and wash away the chance I see there flickering in her eyes. I do so want him to be happy. _But_ _Heaven help her if she falls in love with him, _I think laughing to myself.

Eventually Katie marches back into the shed, hair slightly disheveled, cheeks pink. Effy follows behind her, smirking like the cat who ate the canary.

Another day dawns upon me, brand new, bright, and pulsing with expectations. The sunlight is streaming in through my window panes, shafts bathing my bedroom in a warm glow. The red sheets upon my mattress frame the small pale girl lying next to me, like something out of a painting. I stare at her with unbridled adoration and love. I stare at her like at any moment she might disappear. The sunlight beams brightly against her brown hair, highlighting it in warm copper and gold hues. It is like an explosion in my room, an explosion in my heart. That soft light caresses her side, the curve of her breast down to her hip. I mimic it, ghosting it with my hand; careful not to wake her. _She is beautiful._ I hesitate. No, not beautiful. Everyone calls their love beautiful. She couldn't ever be something millions of other girls are. She is so much more. She is magnificent. I hesitate again. _How is she even with me? How is this possible?_

That I could be so lucky, that Naomi Campbell love struck and almost mad with desire; could win the heart of the woman she adored? This very second, I ache to breathe her scent and I burn to hold her close. God, this could get painful. This could be utter disaster if she ever left me. I try not to let every image burn me with its warmth; the magnitude of it, searing into my memory. The very first time I looked into her eyes. The first time she smiled at me, our first kiss. The first time we made love. My mind was filling those moments away to some special place inside me and I raged against it. I did not want to need her that much. But I did. I do. And I probably always will. I pushed my hand through my blonde hair in frustration.

"Fucks sake," I whisper.

"I can feel you staring at me, pervert." I hear Emily's throaty voice say.

I jump half a foot before laughing, "Jesus! Emily, I didn't know you were awake."

"Well I wasn't until you started 'feeling me up' in my sleep. Very classy, Campbell." Emily says chuckling at my expense.

"I wasn't. Well, dammit Emily!" I say jumping on her, beginning to tickle her sides.

She laughs breathlessly as we wrestle around on my bed. My hands are feverishly moving over her looking for her most sensitive spot to brush against, trying desperately to make her pay. Emily wriggles and rolls, laughing the whole time. I think she is laughing out of pure joy. The sound is beautiful, like music. Gliding through the air into the drums of my ear, pushing against them, twisting and turning, filing themselves neatly away with everything I would possibly miss if she ever left. I look at the curves of her slender neck, the sharp lines of her jaw. I take in her soft, pink lips bursting open – pearl white teeth, glistening, smooth, deft tongue hiding within. I stare at her button nose, her brown eyes like glimmering pools. Reflecting my own joy back at me, reflecting everything I never thought I would have. I stop tickling Emily and gaze at her seriously.

"Naoms? What's wrong? You look serious." Emily asks inquisitively still gasping for breath.

"I am serious. Everything is so fucking serious to me," I say mumbling the words out.

"Naoms?" Emily looks at me a little worried.

"I love you, you know?" I say softly.

"I know." She says stroking my jaw line.

"You're fucking perfect," I say holding back tears.

"No, no I'm not. Please don't say that. Don't put me up on a pedestal, Naomi. You might put me up so high, you'll never reach me. I don't want that." Emily turns her head to the side and sighs before looking at me again. "Don't worship me. Love me. That's all I need. Listen to me. Try to understand me. Be there for me when I need you. But if you worship me, I'll never live up to that. I can never be what 'fantasy Emily' is. She can be what ever you want, but I can't. I'm just me, broken, scared, and maybe just a little bit stubborn. I'm imperfect and wild, but real, so fucking real." And with that, she reaches out and grabs my hand and pushes it onto her heaving chest. I bite my lip as I feel her nipple grow hard beneath my palm. My throat grows dry and I lick my lips repeatedly as I stare at her hooded eyes and pale bosom. "Naomi, are you going to kiss me?" She asks in that deliciously husky voice I have grown to adore.

"I was thinking about it," I say smiling devilishly.

"Stop thinking so fucking much." She says pulling me into her for a kiss. I feel our bodies collide, breasts pressing together as her tongue moves in my mouth. The warmth of her mouth upon mine and her sweet tongue dancing with my own causes an involuntary flood between my legs.

I gasp for air. As always, my mind is swimming, drowning in Emily Fitch. Her scent invading my senses, a softness, a sweetness, something undeniably her own, I breathe her in. I want to live wrapped up in that scent. I breathe in wildly as I move to kiss her neck. I nip at it and suck the smooth, warm flesh I find there. I hear Emily gasp and she begins to writhe beneath me. I move back to her mouth and kiss her slowly. I softly graze her left breast with my hand. I am savoring her. I am torn between the desire to devour her and the desire to slowly burn beneath her. I want it all.

The possibilities are endless. I continue slowly teasing my petite brunette and she writhes with ecstacy, her smooth body gliding beneath me. It elevates my arousal more than I can express, but I attempt it with a low, guttural groan. Emily moans in response.

Then she flips us over and straddles my left hip, angling her body against mine, peppering me with slow, sensuous kisses. My heart is bursting with unbridled joy and passion. I think of touching her endlessly, never moving from this bed as seasons passed and leaves fell and I would never feel like I missed a thing. She is everything. I cannot possibly ever express this to her though. The madness of it possesses, even me; to love someone like that. I told you I wanted a word stronger than "Love". I have seen so much more though. I know who we are to each other and what we might become.

It is so lonely to be locked inside of this body, this shell; for a lifetime. We seek out others who make us feel, whole, less lonely, less alone. That connection is part of our purpose on this planet, part of what we are. And I want to share all of me, with her. The things that frighten me, the tears I have needlessly and will needlessly shed; the joy, the anger and the ecstasy of me. I want her to see me like no one else has, and I do not want her to run away from it. I will split open wide, the light of my love shining from me and she will not edge away when the blood of my sins runs to her feet. She will stay. I want her to stay.

I watch her in awe as she pulls up and pushes strands of her dark hair from her face and neatly tucks it behind her right ear. Her expression is one of simple tenderness towards me, unfiltered affection and still somewhat unbelievable in my opinion, love. Emily Fitch is _in_ love with me. I feel her body move slightly and I bite my lip as I feel wetness upon my thigh, Emily's wetness. _Jesus. God._ "Emily…fucking hell," I groan.

I am blithering like an idiot inside my own head. A million miles a minute, everything rushing like a freight train. _"Fucking kiss her, you moron!"_ My brain berates me. And I do, suddenly, fiercely with the fervor of a maniac.

She smiles into the kiss and her hands roam over the ivory expanse of my body. I tremble beneath her, exposed in every way possible; my body, my heart, my fucking soul.

I use celestial colors to paint this image into my brain. To save forever in the halls of my conscious mind, her beauty, her kiss, such life saving power in her touch.

Emily straddles my right thigh and sits upright, her hair slightly tousled and her lips swollen from kissing. She is naked, but gorgeous. Like a statue carved out of alabaster or like a woman-king from ages past. I cannot think of her as just any mere woman. But I do not want an idol. I do not want an image so pure and so pristine that I am too defiled to even touch it. I want something real. I want someone like Emily, someone gloriously flawed and beautiful because of them, not in spite of them. I really do want the heart and aching desperate soul of her. It is all that will ever last. She breathes in and I watch her chest rise and fall with every gasp of oxygen to enter her lungs. The carbon-dioxide she expels swirling around me, stealing my breath. Her nipples are rock-hard and her hips are moving slightly against my thigh. _Fuck me, is that ever sexy._ Her eyes seem to shine in the low light. They shine like onyx, dark, urgent and wild. I stare at her, my body screaming for her to touch me. I instinctively spread my legs apart and I see Emily smile.

"Fuck, you are beautiful," she whispers. "I mean, I wish you could see yourself through my eyes because, God. You'd be dying right now. My heart is slamming so hard against my ribcage that it's painful, babes."

I reach up and press my hand to her chest, feeling the erratic beating of her heart. It slams against her ribcage and I look up at her face. She is panting, occasionally lifting her arm to brush her tousled hair out of her face with her hand. The silence is deafening. Emily moves down slowly to kiss me again. It is sensuous, passionate and full of need.

Everything in me screams a melody of delight. Everything in me sings a song of beauty. Her lips against mine feel like an explosion going off inside my brain. I just want her to want me. I want her to need me like life needs life. Like nothing else will ever matter. I want to be wrecked by her presence and her, decimated by mine. I want to be both the destroyer and the destroyed. I am gasping for air as her scent invades me, softness, vanilla, sweetness and sweat. Her heart is thumping out her arousal to me. I can hear her moaning in between kisses. I can feel the velvet of her skin colliding with mine. I see her beauteous frame in the soft light and I ache inside. I feel another rush of wetness over take me. I can feel everything moving in slow-motion. Every time I touch her, it feels like it is over too soon. This time, I want to make it last. I want it to be held in the 'Halls of Fucking' somewhere as a beacon for others. I want the neighbors to hear us. I want the world to know. _I belong to Emily Fitch._

Emily moves her hand down my body slowly and I shiver in anticipation. I begin to tremble in earnest. This girl does that to me. Leaves me shaking and afraid, afraid of the power she holds over me. But I will not run. Right here, right now, there is nowhere I would rather be.

I gasp as her hand finds its way between my thighs and she begins gently stroking my clit with her fingers. I arch as much as possible, bucking my hips involuntarily with each movement of her hand.

As I flood her fingers with my own want, she smiles as she leans in to fiercely kiss me. I gasp and moan into her mouth. This only makes her movements more frenzied across my swollen nub. I growl into her mouth. I hear Emily gasp as I feel her wetness increase upon my thigh.

She moves down to hungrily suck on my right nipple. I moan loudly as I feel her fingers enter me and pick up speed. We find a rhythm and I surge forward against her hand. Her muscles are taught and burning, her eyes bright and shining. Again and again and again, I glide against her. I feel the sensation lessening. I manage to choke out in a desperate cry, "Add another finger, Emily."

She nods in a trance as she slips another of her perfect fingers into my heated center. The sensation of her filling me further causes me to cry out in ecstasy. "Fuck. Fucking. Oh god! Emily!" I buck harder against her. We are panting as Emily pushes into me harder, finding no resistance, only my warm wetness, greeting her.

I feel my orgasm building. I begin to shake harder as she moves to my breasts again, biting the nipple and then gently sucking. I scream out. "Fuck! Oh god!"

She moves to my neck and sucks it hard, I inhale her scent and am driven over the edge by it. "Emily!" I cry out. Unable to think of anything else more beautiful to say than that. I shiver with after shocks as Emily keeps her fingers inside me. Her wetness soaks my thigh. She moves to kiss me with her soft, elegant lips. Her kisses pick up further and before I know it, she is moving inside me again. More hungry, more frantic, as if she is the one afraid I might disappear. I rocket towards another orgasm at her every touch.

Only when I am physically spent and hoarse from screaming, _(my poor neighbors); _does she say anything at all. She lays beside me staring at my face in the soft, lingering light.

"I love you," she whispers.

"Yeah, I love you too." I say grinning broadly.

"I want a word stronger than love though, do you know what I mean?" she says her eyes bright and open. My own thoughts reflected back at me.

"Yes. I know exactly what you mean." I say moving to kiss her.

**Okay. I'm thinking of doing maybe 1 or 2 more chapters to wrap some stuff up, if the inspiration strikes. You know what to do. Please review me!**


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